East Chicago, a small town in northwest Indiana, devastated by extremely high levels of lead contamination, protested the visit by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt, who came amid rumors the federal agency intends to close the regional EPA office in nearby Chicago, which is responsible for carrying out environmental cleanup.
East Chicago has three Superfund zones, one of which includes the West Calumet housing complex, built in 1972 on top of land used to dump toxic lead waste. The land under West Calumet’s homes has lead levels 228 times higher than the allowable limit,
according to East Chicago resident and environmental activist Thomas Frank.
“This is a national crisis,” said Frank. “It talks about a lot of the issues that we face throughout the country. We have a regressive system. It protects those at the top of the economic food chain while concentrating the contaminants and issues in low-income, vulnerable communities like ours. We’re looking to re verse that.”
