Indianapolis’ recent Lead Summit brought health experts and community leaders together to tackle the city’s lead exposure crisis, highlighting urgent steps needed to protect local families and create safer neighborhoods.
“We care about this cause because we care about our children here in Indianapolis,” Mayor Joe Hogsett said. “We understand that not only are they the future of our city, but they are also at the heart of everything that we do as a city … We are here to envision a lead-free Indy.”
Indianapolis is behind when it comes to lead safety. Grants and other funding have higher utilization in Ohio and Illinois than Indiana. A problem that could be addressed at the summit according to Paul Krievens, division director for Lead and Healthy Homes for the Indiana Department of Health.
“We are underrepresented in the Midwest landscape of communities that are willing to step up and be bold,” Krievens said. “Change is what we need. That’s what’s going to move the needle, and I think that’s ultimately how we as a state get better.”
The Summit gathered community leaders from the Marion County Health Department, Hoosier Environmental Council, Indiana Department of Health and the Martindale Brightwood Environmental Justice Collaborative. Liz Gore spoke on behalf of the collaborative and the neighborhood’s deep-rooted history with lead.
The American Lead Facility, formerly located at 2120 Hillside Ave. in the Martindale Brightwood area. Lead smelting and industrial operations were performed at the site as far back as the late 1800s, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. These operations contaminated the community with lead, and the repercussions remain.
“We have found that in some of our schools with our children are suffering with learning disabilities,” Gore said. “We also found that there were health problems in some of the families. We kept seeing a recurrence of kidney infections, brain cancer, things like that.”
As Gore explains, many of the health affects come from lack of public knowledge.
“A lot of the people did gardening, so they dug into that soil, not understanding what the consequences would be.”
The Summit highlighted Martindale Brightwood’s struggles while recognizing the need for change. Informing neighborhoods of potential contaminations, the free lead testing for Indianapolis children and the solutions for lead in homes were discussed.
Following the introduction of city leaders, the summit broke off into groups to discuss the current lead issues facing Indy. Communication between organizations, lack of funding and manpower and public education were all at the top of the list. As the room discussed, if organizations want to help educate the public, receive federal grants and provide solutions, they need to collaborate.
“It is important that we leave here with a commitment to do something, and as long as we continue to put one foot in front of the other, we will eventually make it to a lead-free city,” said Karla Johnson, administrator for the Marion County Health Department.
The Summit also marked the introduction of the LeadAdvisor tool by Mission Unleaded, a Marion County Health Department project. Through the tool, users can visit missionunleaded.org and look up a property’s address and it will show lead testing and results for that property. The tool also uses AI to answer lead-related questions and inform the public of their resources. A resource, as Johnson explains, is one step in a hard battle to make Indianapolis a lead-free city.
“This is not a feel-good moment of let’s come together, let’s learn about lead, let’s learn what it does to the child and to the body and all of those other things,” Johnson said. “We already know what it does, and then we go back to our prospective organizations’ homes, and we do nothing. The idea now is that we are going to do something.”
For more information and to use the LeadAdvisor tool, visit missionunleaded.org.
Town hall tackles housing, environment with Quality of Life Plan – Indianapolis Recorder
Contact Health & Environmental Reporter Hanna Rauworth at 317-762-7854 or follow her on Instagram at @hanna.rauworth.
