Sept. 30, 2016
Best of the States
Lead crisis in housing project was actually no surprise
The down-at-the-heels industrial city of East Chicago, Indiana, made headlines around the world in August after the mayor ordered 1,000 people to get out of a 40-year-old public-housing complex because of lead contamination.
Many residents and observers expressed surprise: How could such a problem go overlooked for so many decades?
The Chicago bureau’s Sara Burnett and Jason Keyser teamed up for several weeks of intensive document and street reporting. What they found was as disturbing as the original news: The hazard shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone – because the housing complex had been built on the former site of a lead-products factory.
![Ap 16266794561429](https://leads-uploads.associatedpress.com/feature-images/_archiveList/AP_16266794561429.jpg)