West Calumet resident Tara Adams, North Township Trustee Frank Mrvan, and State Board of Education member Eddie Melton at Calumet Lives Matter meeting

Fear, disbelief, and anger at East Chicago's West Calumet housing complex

Contributed By:The 411 News

When East Chicago’s West Calumet housing development opened its doors to residents in 1972, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was only 2 years old. And Love Canal, the first EPA superfund site was not yet on the horizon.

For years, residents of the Love Canal neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York begged for explanations about oils seeping from the soils in their yards, foul odors, and dying vegetation. By the time it was designated a superfund site in 1978, the source of those unexplained oils and odors were identified as chemical wastes that had been buried there decades earlier.

In a matter of weeks, West Calumet residents’ lives were turned upside down. First, a letter in June from the East Chicago Housing Authority stating that soil testing by the EPA revealed high levels of lead and arsenic. Signs were placed throughout the 346-unit housing complex warning residents not to let their children play on the lawns.

West Calumet is located on land that is part of the US Smelter and Lead Superfund Site, designated by the EPA in 2012 for cleanup. Its borders are E. Chicago Avenue on the north, south to 151st Street, east to Parrish Avenue, and west to the EJ&E Railway tracks.

Lead is poisonous in high levels and is known to cause some forms of cancer. High levels of lead are harmful to young children and women who are pregnant.

In July, residents learned they would have to leave their homes and the housing complex would be demolished.

At an August 3rd meeting, the East Chicago Housing Authority said only West Calumet residents in good standing would receive housing vouchers to relocate.

The levels of anger, disbelief, and fear were high at Saturday’s “Calumet Lives Matter” meeting at Carrie Gosch Elementary School, held just days after the East Chicago school district said it would close the school because of lead contamination worries. Only a fence separates Gosch from the housing complex.

State Sen. Lonnie Randolph of East Chicago organized the meeting because of residents’ concerns and what he called “a nonchalant attitude” from East Chicago officials.

He invited attorneys to educate residents about their rights as public housing tenants, their civil and legal rights. “These attorneys will give you advice free of charge; they’ve did this before,” Sen. Randolph said about the panel that included representatives from several legal clinics in Chicago.

“The universities have environmental legal clinics. Law schools fund them and their job is to go out pro bono – to help remedy things like this. They’ve worked on issues like this throughout the Midwest offering their assistance. I want the community to work through them instead of private attorneys,” Randolph said.

Katherine Walz, with the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, called the EPA’s offer to clean residents’ homes “more of a band-aid” to stem residents’ anxieties. “If the EPA comes into your house for cleanup, don’t just let them wipe off the toys. Ask them about the pathways of lead dust into your house.” Walz said the EPA is giving priority for cleanup to families in homes with pregnant women and with children under the age of six.

Those families will also be the first to receive relocation vouchers. The legal clinics attorneys said they would work to get security deposits returned and the highest value relocation vouchers. Other attorneys on the panel were Emily Gilman of Goldberg Kohn Ltd., Allyson Gold from the Health Justice Project at Loyola Univ. School of Law, and Debbie Chizewer from the Environmental Advocacy Center at Northwestern Univ.

“Where can I go?” asked LaKisha Daniels, who has lived all of her forty years in the complex. “I can’t go to my mother’s or my grandmother’s house; both live in cleanup zones.” Daniels said she has made repeated trips to the emergency room this summer with her son for high fevers that physicians have been unable to diagnose.

Bishop Tavis Grant, the pastor of Greater First Baptist Church said there are many residents like Daniels in West Calumet. “This is the only housing they’ve known.” For 10 years, he was the pastor at First Baptist Church, in the 4900 block of McCook Avenue and on the complex’s southeastern edge. And he lived next door. The church is included in the sites designated for cleanup.

He said First Baptist spent nearly $2 million to build a new church on the site. “What is going to happen to them?”

William O’Neil, a West Calumet resident lives at 4900 Aster. “My wife died of cancer in February, a school teacher for 40 years in East Chicago public schools.” O’Neil said he has two sister-in-laws also diagnosed with cancer.

“I worked at BP for 37 years. Lead is a carcinogen you don’t want to mess with. The hotter it gets, the more lead comes out of the soil. These people need to be evacuated ASAP.” A higher occurrence of lead poisoning in children has been noted during summer months, earning the name “the summer disease.”

Earl Harris, Jr., an East Chicago resident and Democrat candidate for State Representative District 2 said, “This is a huge crisis. This is about the human lives, where they grew up, where generations have lived for years. It is important not only to citizens of northwest Indiana, but to the entire state, the legislature, the government, and its agencies. It is important for all of us to get involved.”

It’s a concern for the school district too, said Eddie Melton, a State Board of Education member. He asked the panel. “Will you be able to advise the school district? This is a fairly new structure. They owe money on this building. Can they receive assistance in terms of relief on their bonds?”

Frank Mrvan, the North Township Trustee said he wants to and will help make a central location where all information and agencies can be consolidated. “We did it in 2008 when flooding hit Munster, Hammond, and Highland.” Mrvan said he will ask for space in the now unused Gosch school.

Rev. Cheryl Rivera, executive director of the Northwest Indiana Interfaith Alliance called it a crisis of major proportions for the city. “What we have here is environmental racism and injustice. A serious problem that historically happens to black and brown people. This crisis has been hid, covered up so long. But now something has to be done. Get the people moved and remediate the land. There has to be reparations for all of the residents, those who are here and thousands who have passed through who may be sick and don’t know why they’re sick.”

Story Posted:08/15/2016