[CPEO-BIF] Lake County, Indiana, Community Impact Report

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

NORTHERN LAKE COUNTY COMMUNITY IMPACT EXERCISE
October 28, 2000
Lenny Siegel, CPEO
(January, 2000)

On October 28, 2000, CPEO led a Community Impact Statement (CIS)
exercise in Lake County, Indiana. Based upon that meeting, this report
describes community members' views of environmental conditions in their
areas, and it also draws lessons on the utility of the Community Impact
Statement concept.

**

The October, 2000 Community Impact Statement exercise in Lake County,
Indiana, demonstrated once again that "asking the community" adds value
to the analysis of environmental risk for brownfields redevelopment,
facility siting, and the allocation of public resources. In this case,
approximately 20 activists and other community members from northern
Lake County described a series of environmental problems. In general
their evaluations were consistent with data available from official
sources, but their perspective likely would lead to different
environmental and redevelopment policies. Since the purpose of this
exercise was to document community concerns, not all the assertions made
by participants have been verified.

Northern Lake County consists of four industrial cities - Gary, Hammond,
East Chicago, and Whiting - with a population of about 240 thousand
people, about half the county. For decades it has been home to steel
mills, petrochemical plants, and other heavy industry. The area abuts
the southern shore of Lake Michigan, and the Grand Calumet River runs
through it.

**

Participants identified air pollution as a major issue in their area.
The area is a non-attainment area under the Clean Air Act, and
particulates from U.S. Steel's huge Gary complex are often visible on
surfaces nearby. Participants blame air pollution for what they consider
high rates of cancer, childhood asthma, and other ailments. Industry
emits pollutants around the clock, seven days a week, but its releases
appear to be greatest on nights and week-ends.

In addition to the standard sources of air pollution - heavy industry
and automobile traffic - participants highlighted the heavy truck
traffic transversing the area. Because of the Chicago area's role as a
national crossroads, a large number of trucks pass through these
communities, contributing to environmental and social degradation.
Trucks emit diesel air pollution. They are noisy at all hours. They make
driving the highways more difficult. One participant even suggested that
the truck traffic feeds "unwholesome" businesses that cater to truckers.
That is, there is a holistic concern about the role of their communities
as a national heavy truck route.

Concerns about truck traffic are compounded by the fact that many trucks
are just passing through. Other than their purchases at local truck
stops, they contribute little to the local economy. Yet they help to
perpetuate the negative image of northern Lake County.

Truck traffic is such a major concern that residents may even oppose
economically beneficial brownfields redevelopment if it is likely to
generate more truck traffic.

Some of the participants noted that a proposal to build a parallel
highway in more affluent, whiter southern Lake County contains a likely
promise to prohibit heavy truck traffic. A more environmentally just
approach, they felt, would be to construct an alternate route designed
to divert heavy trucks from their current urban routes.

The impacts of truck and auto traffic could be alleviated through a
variety of measures, including car pooling, alternative truck routes,
green diesel and alternative fuel technologies. The U.S. Department of
Transportation's Environmental Justice Policy could be used to keep
through-traffic out of people-of-color and other poor neighborhoods.

**

There is a great deal of information available about the area's six
federal NPL sites, but those sites appear to be a relatively minor
concern to the community. This appears to be because 1) contamination
has already occurred, 2) responses are underway, and 3) only a small
number of people have historically relied upon groundwater supplies.
There is concern, however, that the migration of contaminants into Lake
Michigan will damage the surface water that serves as the local water
supply.

Brownfields, on the other hand are endemic, although it's hard to
distinguish brownfields from other abandoned sites in the area. Such
properties not only represent a health concern. They are a constant
reminder of the shortage of good jobs, and an apparent invitation to
businesses with poor environmental records and/or poor corporate
citizenship. One reason participants indicated concern about brownfields
is that so little is known about the level of contamination present at
these sites.

Like many other older waterfront communities, Gary appears poised to
transform its western coastline from a purely industrial zone with
contaminated beaches to an area that takes advantage of its natural
beauty - moving forward with residential and recreational uses. There is
a project underway that will demolish a former cement plant on the shore
of Lake Michigan and redevelop it into a multi-purpose complex including
entertainment and housing.

In market terms, this seems to make sense. With the globalization of
heavy manufacturing, it's unlikely that Gary will ever rebuild its heavy
industry. Even remaining employers, such as U.S. Steel, are a shell of
their former selves. Yet the Chicago metropolitan area as a whole is
doing fairly well, and the southern lake shore appears to be a desirable
place for a bedroom community - if it's cleaned up.

Considering the housing needs of the Chicago region, as it relates to
the southern shore of Lake Michigan, Gary found itself with the
opportunity for such development on its eastern beach front. However,
participants in the exercise opposed such a development (as presented in
a prior proposal) because it would have created a gated community with
no public access to that part of the beach and would have served a
population wealthier than those currently in the area. It was viewed as
a development that the people would pay for yet not be able to afford.
In addition, nearby homeowners were concerned about being bought out and
property taxes escalating beyond what they could afford to pay. 

Still, the participants appeared to be receptive to potential new uses,
and my guess is that they wouldn't oppose a development that served a
socioeconomic mix of people. But they felt that the current residents,
who have endured Gary's ups and downs, should benefit as well as
newcomers. They strongly opposed government assistance for the proposed
gated brownfields project. Like people elsewhere, they felt that
Brownfields subsidies shouldn't just go to projects simply because they
clean up, landscape, and generate economic activity. Public sector help,
either in the form of financial subsidies or regulatory assistance,
should be targeted to projects that benefit the residents and businesses
who have suffered the consequences of brownfields. They also believed
that the government has a responsibility to make sure that such
assistance goes to those communities with limited revenues and resources
rather than those that already have the financial capacity that the
program offers.

**

Participants identified several corporate polluters in the area, but
opposition to big companies did not appear to be the centerpiece of
their attitudes. Still, particularly in Gary, as participants considered
a succession of environmental problems, U.S. Steel was clearly the
800-pound gorilla. U.S. Steel is by far the largest source of air toxic
releases in the County. Historically it has released contaminants into
the Grand Calumet River, and now, over the objection of some of the
participants, it is seeking approval for a landfill (corrective action
management unit, or CAMU) reportedly designed to contain contaminated
dredge spoils. They also charge that it's being designed to accept twice
as much material as planned to be dredged.

Historically the largest employer in Lake County, U.S. Steel-Gary Works
now only employs about 6,800 workers, a mere fraction of what it
employed in its heyday. These are good jobs, but participants said that
only a small fraction of its employees are from Gary. They charged the
company with job blackmail, in which it uses the threat of additional
job losses to counter proposals to subject it to more stringent
environmental regulations. 

**

Contaminated sediment in the Grand Calumet River is one of the area's
major environmental problems. Most of the water in the River originates
as municipal or industrial effluent. It impacts fish caught by local
subsistence fishers, and in the long run it further threatens the
condition of Lake Michigan. The Army Corps of Engineers is leading a
planned effort to dredge the river, but some of the participants felt
that there was not a sufficient commitment to go deep enough. The
proposed dredging is being designed to keep the ship channel open and
reduce the release of contaminants into the lake, but the Corps plans to
remove only 38% of the contaminated sediment. Two participants spoke
favorably of a phytoremediation project, in which cattails have been
planted along the river and are regularly harvested to remove
pollutants.

The proposed CAMU at U.S. Steel plus a proposed Confined Disposal
Facility in East Chicago, also to contain dredge spoils, are a major
concern. Both are located in residential areas and in close proximity to
schools. No one, said some of the participants, has assessed the impact
these projects will have on children's health, overall health concerns
such as cancer and liver disease, property values, and outdoor
activities such as gardening. They  consider the actions of U.S. EPA and
the Army Corps of Engineers to be discriminatory, and the Environmental
Justice Executive Order (#12898) doesn't appear to help.

**

Participants highlighted another water quality problem. According to
some of the participants, U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have
stated that they are not responsible for water outside the levees. They
said that the filling in of wetlands and the construction of flood
control features, such as eight retention ponds, designed to protect
other areas were causing sewer overflow and flooding in the poorer areas
of Gary. Gardens, basements, and streets are experiencing flooding not
generally experienced before. Residents are worried about exposure to
both toxic chemicals and sewage from the flooding.

**

A presenter for Indiana University Northwest described its program to
promote the lead-screening of children in old houses. Over half the
housing stock in the area may have lead-based paint. The program, just
getting underway, plans to focus on lead exposures from lead household
paint. He was unaware that the county is or was home to eight lead
smelters. But he was receptive to the suggestion, from another
participant, that lead screening criteria should look at sources besides
household paint.

**

Though a number of the people at the exercise were white, most seemed to
associate the environmental condition of their communities with racism,
because of the predominance of people of color. The people in
predominantly white south county are proposing to keep trucks off their
highways. They stopped a municipal waste landfill in their areas. They
were protected by flood control. The poorer areas still have combined
sewers - that is, sewage pipes joined with storm drains - causing sewage
overflows during heavy storms. 

The predominantly African-American (and somewhat Latino) population of
the north county industrial belt suffers a combination of environmental
threats that have adversely impacted the overall environmental health
and quality of the region. Though many participants remain dedicated
activists, they expressed frustration that it was difficult to mobilize
their neighbors or influence officials. They are caught in a vicious
cycle of disempowerment.


**

The northern Lake County CIS exercise successfully brought forward key
concerns from participating members of the community. Activist residents
clearly are experts, so the CIS concept is generally valid. Once again,
however, the exercise pointed out opportunities for improving the CIS
tool.

On the positive side, the collection of participants was informed and
diverse. Gary Brownfields coordinator Mary Mulligan personally recruited
participants. Most were knowledgeable about at least some of the
environmental issues on the table. They were more than willing to talk.
They were racially, occupationally, and (within the north county area)
geographically diverse. This is probably the number one reason why the
exercise was successful.

Also, the round-the-room introductions at the start of the meeting
proved a valuable method of identifying issues of concern. This probably
worked particularly well because the participants included activists
from different parts of the area.

There is a caveat: The participants were invited because they tend to
represent activist constituencies. There was no pretense that they were
necessarily representative, politically, of their communities as a
whole.

On the other hand, the morning presentations and associated discussions
"went over," limiting the time for the CIS exercise. The facilitator
(CPEO director Lenny Siegel) had to rush through the evaluation and make
spot judgments that might have been left to the group had the pace been
more leisurely. Furthermore, though some of the participants - including
the facilitator - came armed with data, it would have been helpful to
have that information displayed for the entire group.

More seriously, the sequenced review of attributes or criteria, as laid
out in CPEO's CIS workplan, didn't work very well. Participants were not
familiar with the categories. While training might have helped, the
criteria depended somewhat on them fitting their world view to that of
the facilitator. Furthermore, for each of the problems discussed, some
of the attributes were not applicable.

For these reasons, for future exercises CPEO is likely to abandon the
worksheet and combine the questions into a narrative. In that form, the
questions may help shape the discussion, but participants won't be
forced to couch their statements in that form. And the facilitator won't
be tasked with so many on-the-spot decisions to skip issues or to
interpret local input.


-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/968-1126
lsiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org

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