Lead contamination in East Chicago
Some air concern about confusion from mixed
and missed messaging
“We clearly heard you,” Tina Lovingood, a director with the Office of Inspector General, said to the 50 or so residents at the end of the two-hour meeting.
The office’s report of the session should be out by the end of the year, a report that also will be issued to Congress, Lovingood said.
However, Lovingood said if there is anything that they feel that they need to do immediately to help avoid human health risk, it can be communicated in a report to the EPA “very quickly.”
That was good news to Debbie Chizewer, of Northwestern University’s environmental advocacy clinic, who said she was encouraged by it.
“Maybe they can make a change,” she said.
Chizewer, like about a dozen or so others who spoke out, talked about what they said were communication issues with the EPA.
One of her concerns was the EPA’s plan to clean up Zone 1 now that the housing complex has been demolished. EPA released a plan for Zone 1 and said the future use would likely be residential. But Chizewer said the plan only requires excavation to 2 feet.
“However, under Indiana law, in order to build homes to make the property usable for residents is to dig 3 feet to have a foundation,” she said.
Chizewer said this was after everyone in the community, including Mayor Anthony Copeland, said they wanted to return to homes in Zone 1. She said the EPA justified that by saying people can still build, they just have to follow institutional controls for that last foot.
“What the EPA was doing without telling the community was transferring the cost from the polluters — because the polluters are not going to pay for that last foot — to developers who are going to pay that last foot,” she said. “So the EPA is currently misleading the public about safety and plans for Zone 1.”
Other speakers included state Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, who said there has not been effective communication between the EPA and the community. He said a lot of times when someone has a question about something, that person has to go and protest and “be really agitated” in order to get a response from the EPA.
East Chicago environmental activist Thomas Frank said he is worried about legacy of miscommunication and moving forward. Mixed messaging has created a lot of confusion, he said.
Frank took people back 40 years when there was no information and EPA was aware that West Calumet was on top of a lead plant. He said then in 1990 it was supposed to be entered in the Superfund program but that process was delayed for an additional 17 years.
“One of the problems we faced is multiple generations became affected and harmed,” he said.
Lovingood said at the end of the session that the Office of Inspector General also heard positive things about what the EPA has done and some of its staff has been “very clear” in their communication and helped get some immediate fixes such as filters for water systems.
Resident Tara Adams, of the East Chicago Calumet Coalition Community Advisory Group, said after the session that each time they speak they are always hopeful.
“Right now we are hopeful we will be heard and that the suggestions will be taken and we will be taken seriously and have a seat at the table in the decision making,” she said.
The Office of Inspector General is holding several similar listening sessions across the nation at sites where the EPA is working. The next stop is Montana. Lovingood said a website,
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