{"id":12430,"date":"2017-12-01t13:13:03","date_gmt":"2017-12-01t13:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dpetrov.2create.studio\/planet\/wordpress\/an-illinois-village-paved-with-toxic-waste-and-the-long-road-to-cleaning-it-up\/"},"modified":"2023-02-28t18:47:15","modified_gmt":"2023-02-28t18:47:15","slug":"an-illinois-village-paved-with-toxic-waste-and-the-long-road-to-cleaning-it-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/an-illinois-village-paved-with-toxic-waste-and-the-long-road-to-cleaning-it-up\/","title":{"rendered":"an illinois village paved with toxic waste\u2014and the long road to cleaning it up"},"content":{"rendered":"
by stephanie fox and zoe johnson <\/strong><\/p>\n depue, a village just off interstate 80 in central illinois, houses 1,727 people, a grocery store open two hours a day, a municipal office where village clerk jane vickers still uses a typewriter for memos, and two mounds of toxic metals.<\/p>\n there\u2019s a gypsum stack and the \u201cpile of black death.\u201d<\/p>\n that\u2019s what depue mayor eric bryant calls the 750,000-ton mass of slag left from the new jersey zinc company\u2019s smelting plants, which operated for more than 80 years before closing in 1990. a few blocks away, the three-story-high gypsum stack appears less ominous due to the growth of some vegetation. however, it is the byproduct of phosphate fertilizer and sulfuric acid plants, in operation for 20 years beginning in the late 1960s and, according to the environmental protection agency, it is highly toxic.<\/p>\n depue has been a federally declared superfund site since 1999, meaning that the village is seriously contaminated with hazardous waste including, but not limited to, zinc, lead, arsenic, cadmium, chromium and copper. fifty-seven different metals have been found throughout the community.<\/p>\n \u201cthe entire village is contaminated,\u201d says nancy loeb, director of northwestern university\u2019s environmental advocacy clinic of the pritzker school of law. the clinic provides pro bono support to the village of depue. though the piles hold most of the waste, the toxins are not limited to the stacks. the slag that eventually created the \u201cpile of black death\u201d also was once handed out to residents as a multi-purpose mixture that could cover streets and driveways or fill holes. as a result, virtually the whole village is paved with toxic slag, loeb says. additionally, aerial depositions of the same heavy metals released into the air during the smelting process contaminated the vast majority of residential properties and public spaces. <\/p>\n