Tuesday, April 10, 2018

DuPont Pollution forces Residents from Homes


By Dominique Otiepka

An African American community in West Calumet, Indiana, has been told to leave their homes due to the toxic soils they are living on, The Guardian reports.  The apartments in which they live are being torn down, because city officials feel that remediation of the soil will cause too much air pollution.  Residents have been given housing vouchers to relocate, though the number of property owners who accept such vouchers is limited.  There are 357 families who live in this housing project that must be evacuated to another area. 

The soil is contaminated with lead and arsenic, which the residents were informed about years after the initial hazardous release from a lead smelting plant.  Many residents claim that they were unaware of this situation, and needed to be tested for contamination in their blood levels. Some tests have showed high levels, which can cause a variety of diseases.  Health issues from living in such areas include a variety of cancers and diseases such as neuropathy and glaucoma.

This group of people have lost all trust in their government, since there have been concerns about lead contamination since at least 1985.  Soil tests were not released for years.  By 2011, there were a number of blood tests with a declining number of children with elevated lead levels in their blood, and it was concluded that there was no longer a public health concern.

The EPA did not take quicker action with prioritizing remediation or testing the soil until an agreement was made with the polluting companies, DuPont Chemical Company and Atlantic Richfield Company. This issue was made public in 2016, which parallels what has been in the spotlight regarding the DuPont contamination in Northern New Jersey. 

The people in Indiana, like those in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, are enraged.  It is shocking that this chemical dumping has happened in a local area, and disturbing that it occurred in yet another.  Lead and arsenic contamination can spread throughout the soil and make its way through surface water locations, causing the spread of contamination and increase in health concerns.  

The impacts that DuPont has had on a variety of communities is disheartening; it has resulted in people losing loved ones due to diseases caused by such toxins.  Pompton Lakes has been under investigation to bring awareness and prevent another catastrophe, which has been occurring in this community for decades.  Knowing that a similar contamination occurred in Indiana deserves further investigation, as well as other areas that have been contaminated that have yet to be remediated.

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