The Environmental Protection Agency’s internal watchdog will host a listening session in East Chicago, Indiana, Wednesday on the group’s communication to residents and officials.
The EPA’s Office of Inspector General wants to know how residents and government agencies feel the E-P-A communicated health risks from Superfund sites. Its latest stop will be in East Chicago, where lead and arsenic contamination prompted an elementary school to move and involuntary relocations of public housing residents.
Tina Lovingood, OIG director of land clean-up and waste management audits, says these listening sessions are designed to help improve the agency’s communication about risks to community health.
“We’re trying to not limit it to one form of input ... to try to get a balanced perspective from those affected by the site,” Lovingood says.
This is the second listening session OIG has hosted in Indiana – the first was in Franklin, Indiana, after receiving a letter from If It Was Your Child and the nonprofit Edison Wetlands Association in January.
The listening session is Wednesday night from 6 to 8 p.m. Central Time at the East Chicago Urban Enterprise Academy.