Indiana governor declares disaster in East Chicago over lead contamination
By
Jessica Goldstein
20 February 2017
In an executive order signed on February 9, Indiana Republican Governor Eric Holcomb declared a disaster for the USS Lead (U.S. Smelter and Lead) site in East Chicago, Indiana. As of last year, as many as 1,000 people were living on the site. The declaration is supposed to mark the beginning of cleanup of the site, which the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated as a Superfund site in 2009 due to dangerously high levels of lead in the soil.
Superfund is a US federal government program launched in 1980 after the corporate-made Love Canal disaster in New York state to fund the cleanup of sites contaminated with hazardous substances.
On Friday February 17, Holcomb and Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch met with Democratic Mayor Anthony Copeland along with other city officials and advocacy groups in East Chicago to discuss the executive order. A press conference followed.
The disaster declaration was signed two months after the state’s former governor, current US Vice President Mike Pence, had refused to sign a similar order. Copeland, with the support of Indiana state Democrats, requested the declaration from Pence along with an allocation of federal funding on December 1, 2016. Pence refused, stating that adequate state resources had already been spent on the issue.
The widespread publicity and outrage following the late 2015 exposure of the lead poisoning of Flint, Michigan water has caused a public awareness of lead poisoning throughout the country. The renewed focus on East Chicago and the USS Lead site is a direct result.
Governor Holcomb’s recent declaration allocates an additional $2 million for the demolition of the West Calumet Housing…