'It's a disaster': East Chicago still reeling from lead crisis

That federal designation triggered the Environmental Protection Agency to start developing a plan to clean up lead contamination around the homes of the people who lived in Calumet.

Maritza Lopez attended a meeting in 2012 about the cleanup and another in 2014. Lopez said the EPA never gave the impression of any urgency about the danger to the residents.

That all changed in July 22, 2016, when East Chicago Mayor Anthony Copeland told residents of the West Calumet Housing Complex in a letter they had to move because of the high levels of lead and arsenic in the soil. As the news set in for those residents, others living in the Calumet neighborhood saw growing numbers of EPA crews taking soil samples and they later learned the contamination was outside their homes as well.

"That's what lit it up," Lopez said. "That was just like wildfire going through."

In the year since the news stunned the Calumet neighborhood, the EPA has pushed forward with cleanup efforts to remove contaminated material, but residents still question whether the efforts are enough.

"I just feel like it's a disaster even a year later," said Akeeshea Daniels, a former resident of West Calumet who now lives elsewhere in the Superfund site.

Lingering questions

The West Calumet Housing Complex sits empty, now surrounded by a chain link fence topped with razor wire. The specter of the complex that once housed more than 1,000 residents haunts the neighborhood as it's soon destined for the wrecking ball.

The East Chicago Housing Authority aims to start demolishing the buildings and digging up underground utilities this fall, but residents and advocates raised questions whether those actions could spread additional contamination into the neighborhood.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is reviewing comments submitted on the demolition proposal and has not made a final decision on the process.

"I don't understand how you can say no significant risk," said Tara Adams, a former resident of West Calumet, at a recent community meeting.

"We don't want this to move off there," said Tom Alcamo, an EPA remedial project manager, at a recent forum.

Alcamo said the EPA is keeping an eye on the demolition plans and intends to have monitors in place to ensure any contamination is contained to the site.

"We're going to be inspecting the monitoring," Alcamo said.

Until the West Calumet Housing Complex is demolished, the EPA cannot start remediating the property.

Copeland has said that the future use of the site will be determined once the EPA finishes the remediation of the property. Copeland could not be reached for comment.

Outside of West Calumet, the remainder of the Calumet neighborhood, EPA contractors continue removing contaminated soil from homes.

The EPA expects to remediate the soil around 120 homes in Zone 3, which runs east of Huish Drive, and 72 homes in Zone 2, which is west of Kennedy Avenue, during the 2017 construction season. The properties targeted for cleanup have high concentrations of lead and arsenic in the soil, according to the EPA.

At the end of the 2016 construction season, EPA officials had remediated soil at 17 homes in Zone 2 of the site, which runs from McCook Avenue to East Huish Drive, and 38 in Zone 3, which runs from East Huish Drive to Parrish Avenue.

Tim Drexler, an EPA remedial project manager, said, during a forum, work prior to 2016 focused on removing "hot spots," which were areas with the most contaminated material. The current efforts have much more thorough sampling and excavation, Drexler said.

Daniels said people still haven't gotten an answer on whether it's safe to remain in their homes.

"There are a lot of questions about what is going on a year later," Daniels said.

Future, past health concerns

Ryan said she lived in the complex for 10 years and raised children in the contamination, as did many other families.

"We're worried about the effects of lead on our children prior to and up to this point," Adams said.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, in concert with the Indiana State Department of Health, is in the process of updating the health assessment for the Superfund site. The study will explore the incidence of diseases associated with lead and arsenic exposure, according to the ATSDR, and pull information from local, state and federal sources.

Ryan said the problem is about more than children who are younger than 6 years old.

Daniels said she's not sure they've kept track of the residents who moved out of West Calumet and the neighborhood to see what health issues they have.

"These are things we need answers to," Daniels said.

The ATSDR is looking at the impact of past exposure on residents, said Mark Johnson, and tracking the children who moved out of the area.

Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Merrillville, asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to continue providing support for East Chicago residents, and get programs in place to have long-term health monitoring.

The contamination has gone on for more than 40 years, Lopez said, and babies and grown adults have been subjected to it for all that time.

"My home does not feel safe anymore and we're not getting answers," Lopez said.

'Is the water safe?'

Elbert Williams has a simple question for the EPA last week: "Is the water safe to drink?"

"I cannot absolutely say," said Christopher Korleski, director of water division at EPA Region 5, during an EPA forum, and there's a lot of factors that go into determining the safety of drinking water.

But that question has been on the mind of other Calumet residents, who had water filters installed on their taps by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management this spring.

"Is the water safe even with the filters?" Daniels said. "I guess we'll find that out next time."

Water testing done by the EPA late in 2016 at the Superfund site show elevated levels of contaminants in the drinking water. The agency found that 18 of the 43 homes where the water was tested exceeded 15 parts per billion of lead – the EPA's threshold for water safety.

Despite the EPA's findings, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management pulled samples throughout East Chicago and said they showed "no system-wide issues."

The results, released in May, confirmed that all of the 27 properties sampled had level of lead in the water but none went about the level of concentration that the EPA says requires intervention, according to a press release. The tests found one property with lead levels that exceeded the allowed level of lead, according to IDEM, though subsequent tests had different results.

"There is no higher priority for this agency than the safety of Hoosiers," said IDEM Commissioner Bruno Pigott, in a statement. "As a result of these tests, I am confident that corrosion control is working and can say with certainty that no system-wide lead issues are present in East Chicago's drinking water system."

In March, a group of advocacy organizations, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, petitioned the EPA to provide water filters and bottled water to residents throughout East Chicago.

The EPA is still considering that request.

Meanwhile, with state assistance, the city is moving forward with a program to replace lead service lines throughout East Chicago, starting in the Calumet neighborhood. City Engineer William Allen said, during a community forum, the city will soon replacing the lead service lines in the Superfund site, focusing on homes that are currently being remediated and working back on properties cleaned up last year.

Carla Morgan, an attorney with the city, said the best thing to do to protect the drinking water is replace the lead pipes.

Morgan said prevailing wisdom is that there's no safe level of lead and the city is trying to make the water safer. She said if residents don't have a filter on their tap, they should get one.

"That's the best answer we can give you at this point," Morgan said.

'So much to do'

As Lopez sits through meeting after meeting, she still feels like she's stuck in 2016 as work moves along around the Calumet neighborhood but it's time to move ahead.

"We can't afford more time to pass by," Lopez said. "There's a lot of stuff that already should have been done."

There's a lot of stress and anxiety being felt by the residents, Lopez said, and they need to start seeing more progress. She said a year has passed and all the agencies involved need to come together to start finding solutions.

If everyone communicated and cooperated, more could be accomplished, Lopez said.

"I see there's so much to do," Lopez said.

But even if the agencies at the local, state and federal level coordinate, Lopez said the residents need an important voice.

"They have to work as a team but they have to include us. They have to include the residents," Lopez said.

Williams said he doesn't really see much changing.

"I see it as people trying to calm the waters so to speak and doing what they do all the time," Williams said.