Environmental Impacts
The struggle for a reliable source of drinking water continued for decades in Small Farms and Black Oak. Inadequate sewage disposal, a lack of municipal water lines, persistent flooding, pollution, illegal dumping, and contamination from a toxic Superfund site were some of the issues residents had to cope with.
In July 1966, Small Farms residents picketed the Gary City Hall and the Gary-Hobart Water Corporation, demanding an extension of municipal water services. Despite promises of public water from Mayor A. Martin Katz and several subsequent administrations, sewer lines were still being added to the area as late as 2003.
Learn more about these issues in the following excerpts:
Steve Truchan: "The river was a meandering river, and they built I 94 right on top of it"
Steve Truchan describes how modifications to the Little Calumet River and its watershed impacted the neighborhoods near the spring.
Found at 21:43 in the interview transcript | Listen to the complete interview
Reverend Terence Standifer: "By the time I was an adult, [fishing] was a definite no-no"
Reverend Terence Standifer, the former pastor of the Pleasant Valley Missionary Baptist Church in Small Farms, discusses how pollution affected the Little Calumet River and the surrounding area. He says, "As a young child, I could remember people, vaguely, fishing in the Calumet. By the time I was a teenager, that was gone. By the time I was an adult, it was a definite no-no." He then talks about cleanup projects he led in the Ambridge-Mann community in Gary.
Found at 20:17 in the interview transcript | Listen to the complete interview
Betty Earlene Jordan: "They would just...throw it"
Betty Earlene Jordan discusses how the use of plastic increased the amount of littering at the Chase Street spring. "I think that if people were out there and they had a container that maybe wasn't as clean as they thought it should have been, or if it was bent up too badly," she says, "they would just...throw it."
Found at 05:37 in the interview transcript | Listen to the complete interview
Reverend Terence Standifer: "That was a big issue...what would be the cost of it?"
Reverend Terence Standifer shares his experience doing community outreach for an Environmental Protection Agency remediation project in the Small Farms community. The project, which began in 1988, supplied public water lines to replace the private wells which were contaminated by the Lake Sandy Jo/M&M Landfill Superfund Site, located on 25th Ave. near the communities of Small Farms and Black Oak.
Found at 05:51 in the interview transcript | Listen to the complete interview
Reverend Terence Standifer: "The water company...refused to turn the water on"
Reverend Terence Standifer describes a dispute between the Gary-Hobart Water Corporation and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that developed over the Lake Sandy Jo/M&M Landfill Superfund Site remediation project. In 1988, the EPA worked with the Gary-Hobart Water Corporation to install public water lines to replace the private wells which were contaminated by Lake Sandy Jo. Due to the dispute, individuals in the communities of Small Farms and Black Oak waited until 1993 to gain access to a safe source of water.
Found at 08:06 in the interview transcript | Listen to the complete interview
Tyrell Anderson: "I kept asking: why isn't that area developed?"
Tyrell Anderson, a historic conservationist and co-founder of the Decay Devils, discusses when he first became aware of the Lake Sandy Jo/M&M Landfill Environmental Protection Agency Superfund Site. He states that it is important to have more conversations about the histories of areas like Lake Sandy Jo "so you don't find yourself in a similar situation in the future."
Found at 00:49 in the interview transcript | Listen to the complete interview
Arianne Campbell: "I'm pulling this out of the river, now should I eat it or not?"
Griffith resident Arianne Campbell discusses the impact of pollution on Gary's waterways and how it has affected her life and hobbies. She describes fishing on the Little Calumet River on the same weekend that the news broke about the ArcelorMittal toxic spill. The steel plant released high levels of cyanide and ammonia-nitrogen into the east branch of the river near Portage, Indiana in August of 2019.
Found at 24:59 in the interview transcript | Listen to the complete interview
