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Indy Neighborhood Hears About Its Own Lead Contamination Clean-up

Dan Jeffrey
/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/danjeffrey/5182805581

Residents who live near the site of an old lead smelter in Indianapolis heard details Thursday night of plans to remove tainted soil from as many as 100 homes starting later this month.

For decades, the smelter in the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood reclaimed lead from car batteries and other industrial waste.

Ten years ago, the EPA forced its owners to clean up contaminated soil from hundreds of homes around the site.

The EPA’s Shelley Lam says this new round of cleanup was triggered after follow-up investigation found high levels of a chemical called antimony in soil.

"Antimony only occurs naturally at very low levels, but we saw elevated levels of antimony in this community," Lam says. "Car batteries contain antimony, so showing that there’s a strong correlation between that chemical we know was present at the facility within this community, we were able to establish attribution."

The EPA is using $5 million in Superfund money for the cleanup, and Lam told residents that she would push for more funding if necessary.

Environmental justice advocates like Elizabeth Gore, who chairs the Martindale-Brightwood Environmental Justice Collaborative, have worked for years to educate residents about the lead contamination problem and to press for cleanup. She says she’s glad the EPA is back in her community.

"What we need most is to know that once you take up the soil, are you going to put back good soil? We want to make sure that the property value isn’t affected, we want to make sure that EPA when this is taken care of, the public knows we did the job," Gore says.

Young children are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, and it can lead to serious health problems. Though the clean-up hasn’t started yet, Lam says that homes with young children or pregnant or nursing women will go to the top of the priority list.

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