KARI LYDERSEN
Kari Lydersen has covered Chicago and Midwestern news, including environmental, immigration and labor stories, since graduating from Northwestern University in 1997. She worked as a staff writer at The Washington Post's Midwest bureau from 1997 through 2009, where she was also a regular contributor to the Science page. She also has written for publications including People Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Reader and TimeOut Chicago.
Kari is the author of three books, including "Revolt on Goose Island: The Chicago Factory Takeover and What it Says About the Economic Crisis" (Melville House, 2009) and "Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun," (City Lights, 2008) which was named one of the top 10 art books of the year by Booklist.
She teaches journalism at Columbia College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and works with youth journalists through the non-profit program We the People Media. She grew up in San Diego and is a former member of the U.S. National Swim Team.
Recent Contributions
by KARI LYDERSEN | Feb 13, 2012
For years, environmental and health organizations have called for the closing of the 83-year-old coal-fired State Line Power Station, one of the Chicago area’s top polluters. Now the plant, which is in Hammond, just across the Indiana border on Lake Michigan and adjacent to Calumet Park, is burning through its last stores of coal. It
by KARI LYDERSEN | Jan 2, 2012
A new Army Corps of Engineers study of Chicago-area waterways has stirred the debate over whether to sever the connection between Lake Michigan and inland waterways that were created by the construction of canals a century ago. The study, released on Dec. 7, is part of the Corps’s nearly decade-long process aimed at preventing invasive
by KARI LYDERSEN and IDALMY CARRERA | Dec 14, 2011
In 2005 Carlos Ruiz, 32, lost part of his thumb when it was caught in machinery at the Little Village Car Wash, where he had worked since coming to Chicago from Mexico City in 2000. After the accident he moved to doing car washes by hand, and for six years – until recently getting a
by KARI LYDERSEN | Sep 23, 2011
Questions about the earthiest of matters — whether there is such a thing as clean dirt and, if so, does it exist in Chicago? — are at the heart of a bitter policy fight between two powerful, politically connected industries: landfill and quarry operators. Next week in Springfield, the Illinois Pollution Control Board will begin
by KARI LYDERSEN | Sep 16, 2011
Steve Kozel was 7 in August 1955 when the Standard Oil refinery near his family’s Whiting, Ind., home was badly damaged by a huge explosion and fire. His father, who worked at the nearby Sinclair oil refinery, had been planning to buy a house in Whiting. “My mother said no way,” Kozel said, and they
by KARI LYDERSEN and BRIDGET O'SHEA | Aug 24, 2011
Every morning, rain or shine, Miguel used to head for the corner of Belmont and Milwaukee avenues and wait at an informal gathering spot of day laborers near a BP gas station in hopes he would be hired to set tile, pour concrete or lay sod. After the job, sometimes he would be paid as
by KARI LYDERSEN | Aug 19, 2011
When its chief operating officer, Tony Tedeschi, handed over his responsibilities at the troubled Cook County Health and Hospitals System last month to Carol Schneider, the two had something in common besides serving in that job: Both work for private consulting firms that have played a major role in the sprawling system’s highly controversial restructuring.
by KARI LYDERSEN | Jul 22, 2011
Ted Stalnos said he used to feel like a funeral home director as a development staffer helping people look for work on the Southeast Side, where the steel mills had shut and their good jobs had died. Today Stalnos, a 57-year-old Southest Side native, is planning and administration director for the Calumet Area Industrial Commission,
by KARI LYDERSEN | Jul 20, 2011
Saugatuck, Mich.–R.J. Peterson handed Myra Knoblauch a small sponge on a stick to help her seal the 3,000 envelopes volunteers were mailing last week ahead of a township board meeting that many residents think will determine the future of Saugatuck, the Michigan lakeshore resort town that is a popular spot for Chicago-based beachcombers. Peterson, 84,
by KARI LYDERSEN | Jul 18, 2011
It was a July Fourth like any other in Long Beach, Ind., an idyllic lakeside getaway frequented by well-heeled members of Chicago’s Irish community — a “Norman Rockwell scene” in the words of several locals — complete with a parade and fireworks over the golf course. But the celebration turned tragic around 11:30pm, when the
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