East Chicago resident Maritza Lopez, right, talks with EPA Remedial Project Manager Tim Drexler about testing soil in the Calummet neighborhood during a forum Aug. 30, 2016. Lopez is working with other residents in the USS Lead Superfund site to create a community advisory group under EPA guidelines. Staff photo by Jonathan Miano
Sitting on one another’s steps this summer, Martiza Lopez and her neighbors in East Chicago’s Calumet neighborhood have realized they’re not alone.
“We’re living on this contamination,” she said. “We’re discussing this, and it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, I thought I was the only one that had these body jerks.’ Then we realize we all have them.”
Lopez, 53, and many of her neighbors have lived most of their lives on ground contaminated with lead and arsenic. They’re also dealing with health problems, including cancer, breathing problems and neuropathy.
Though the EPA held meetings over the years to inform residents of the contamination and cleanup plans, the situation reached crisis level this summer after the city told more than 1,000 people living in the nearby West Calumet Housing Complex to relocate.
Now, seven years later, Lopez and several other residents are working toward forming a Superfund Community Advisory Group under EPA guidelines. A CAG allows residents to take their needs and concerns to the EPA as part of the decision-making process.
Now is the time to participate
Lopez said she began attending meetings in 2012 and doesn’t recall seeing any information about how a group could be formed to provide input to the EPA. If she had, she would have pursued that option, she said.
While it hurts knowing residents were left living on the contamination for years, now is not the time to point fingers, Lopez said.
“The blame is going to come out,” she said. “The paperwork is there.”
Now is the time to begin communicating and addressing the issues she and other residents are facing, she said.
CAG meetings are set for 2 to 4 p.m. Oct 15 and 22 at the East Chicago Public Library, 1008 W. Chicago Ave. An EPA representative who specializes in CAGs will meet with the group from 1 to 3 p.m. Oct. 29, Lopez said.
Chizewer, the attorney, said the CAG will be open to all residents from zones 1, 2 and 3.
“It’s important for a variety of people to participate, so any statements that the CAG makes to EPA reflect a range of views from the community,” she said.
A CAG allows the community to have an official role in the cleanup, but it will not take away from other roles community groups may have, she said.
“It’s just another way for residents to participate at the site and have their voices heard,” she said.
At a meeting Saturday, Calumet Lives Matter members said their group — while working with state Sen. Lonnie Randolph (D-East Chicago) — had done a lot of good for residents in West Calumet, including zones 1 and 2.
Chizewer assured them, “Nothing in the CAG is a threat to what Sen. Randolph is doing.”
Bishop Tavis Grant II, of Greater First Baptist Church in East Chicago, leads a committee for the Calumet Lives Matter group. He raised his children in zone 2, and his church was located there for 40 years, but he’s no longer a resident of the Superfund site.
Grant said many residents in the Superfund site are seniors. Their children, who don’t live in the Superfund site, often speak for them.
A CAG could help eliminate duplication, he said.
“The concept is needed,” he said.
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