Like Flint, East Chicago has become a textbook example of governmental apathy and environmental racism. Residents living in the West Calumet housing complex were unaware that, for years, they were living atop a lead Superfund site, which was first flagged as contaminated nearly three decades ago. East Chicagoans were exposed to dangerous levels of lead in their food, water and air for years without their knowledge — resulting in serious illness and long-term disabilities throughout the community. Meanwhile, the EPA and local agencies dragged their feet on remediation efforts for the better part of two decades despite strong internal evidence of dangerous contamination levels.
Sadly, East Chicago is no exception. There is growing evidence of unsafe levels of lead contamination in other cities across Indiana in former industrial areas like Gary and Evansville. Across the nation, there are thousands of regions with unacceptably high levels of lead that are going unnoticed or where the cleanup efforts remain hugely underfunded.
Although the Trump administration inherited rather than caused the lead contamination problem, its hostility toward environmental protections pushes us further away from addressing pollution and its impacts. Nationwide, Scott Pruitt’s EPA has proposed gutting two major programs that identify and eradicate lead poisoning hazards for children. Within East Chicago, it is unclear why the agency refuses to sue a coke plant despite EPA documentation of hundreds of federal air pollution standards violations.
Such actions betray the Trump administration’s lack of seriousness in addressing pollution. But as we strive to hold the federal government accountable, we must ensure that other bad actors aren’t let off the hook. State and city governments are also at fault; local authorities, in East Chicago and elsewhere, have inadequately regulated industrial pollution and are still refusing to pay attention to these ongoing environmental disasters.
Across Indiana, the situation is so bad that earlier this year two members of Congress introduced a state bill to double the number of Medicaid-eligible children who get tested for potential lead poisoning. The fact that the bill never even received a hearing speaks to the lack of political will to address environmental injustices occurring across the state.
We need our government to treat the protection of our children as a serious matter, especially since lead poisoning has real consequences. In Flint, new research finds that fertility rates since 2014 decreased by 12 percent among women while fetal death rates increased by a shocking 58 percent. Sadly, the well-documented racial disparities in lead poisoning means that too many politicians see this as an issue that concerns neither them nor their white constituents. This political indifference to this dangerous and well-documented public health crisis is inexcusable.
Mixed authority and responsibility of federal, state and local governments leads to poor coordination and unclear lines of communication for community members. Compounding the problem is the fact that authorities all too frequently ignore community concerns when they do take action.
East Chicago is a prime example. Local officials failed to seek input from West Calumet residents or key community institutions to understand residents’ needs or the best way to proceed. Affected communities were informed only after critical decisions like emergency evacuations were made. As a result, the East Chicago Housing Authority gave West Calumet residents only 90 days to vacate their homes without providing alternative housing — in the middle of a school year. Residents subsequently had no choice but to file a lawsuit after failing to secure housing elsewhere.
It’s not surprising, then, that East Chicagoans reported feeling disrespected by the authorities who were supposed to help them and felt there was little transparency regarding future plans. This level of community disenfranchisement propagates environmental and social injustice.
The good news is that even as some governmental authorities refuse to protect their citizens, civil and grassroots organizations have increased their efforts. The Indiana NAACP State Conference, for example, organized a series of training events last month for the next generation of leaders and community members to learn how to test for lead in water, soil and air. Students and community members in East Chicago were given kits this week to collect samples with the aim of using the results to support the call for further testing and remedies. Such initiatives are an important means of grassroots empowerment and are crucial to holding government and industry accountable.
“Engaged, empowered, and educated” is how the NAACP leaders envision these communities that historically have suffered decades of marginalization and racial discrimination. I’m hopeful that such efforts by the NAACP could become a model for other parts of the country and inspire a new generation of leaders emerging from communities of color.
Carlton Waterhouse is a professor of law and dean’s fellow at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.
