Dec 27th, 2009
Indianapolis Adult Entertainment: A toxic waste
On some brownfield sites, chemicals that have contaminated groundwater can vaporize and be inhaled by nearby residents. Several decades of breathing those chemicals has been linked to cancer and respiratory conditions, said Pam Thevenow, water quality and hazardous materials administrator with the Marion County Health Department.
Such health effects have entered Joanna Lenoir’s mind. The Martindale-Brightwood resident lost her mom and brother, who also lived in the neighborhood, to pulmonary fibrosis, a lung condition.
She’s hesitant, however, to draw a direct connection between the disease and the neighborhood’s contamination — and the reality is that it is difficult to separate the specific health impact of brownfield contamination from other environmental or behavioral factors.
Lenoir’s bigger concerns are the blight and economic development challenges the brownfields bring.
Lenoir, 64, remembers when the neighborhood was thriving with working-class families.
Now, with so many businesses closed, most of the houses on her block of Columbia Avenue are vacant. The neighborhood’s stable citizens have been replaced by what she calls “flim-flam” — drug dealers, prostitutes and troublemakers.