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Thursday, March 26, 2009

Ind. Courts - "Lawsuit targets Lake County polluters" [Updated]

The AP's Charles Wilson has this story today in the NWI Times. Some quotes:

INDIANAPOLIS | Ron Kurth grew up in Gary and worked in the steel mills, and he raised his family in the region near the outskirts of Chicago. And he always wondered about the smoke and smog that overcast the Lake Michigan shoreline.

"It's just a horrible atmosphere ... bringing a family up in this area," he said.

Kurth, who has a 16-year-old daughter who attends high school in Crown Point, decided someone ought to do something about the pollution, and Wednesday, he did.

He filed a lawsuit against 11 of Lake County's industries, including U.S. Steel and ArcelorMittal, claiming the air pollution they emit from their smokestacks endangers the long-term health of the region's children. The lawsuit seeks class action status on behalf of thousands of parents and their children in the northwest Indiana county's schools.

The complaint cites a study that appeared in USA Today earlier this year that reported children in the heavily industrialized county are exposed to higher levels of airborne toxins than elsewhere in the United States, based on EPA data on air quality outside 127,800 schools nationwide.

Four schools in East Chicago -- Abraham Lincoln Elementary School, Benjamin Franklin Elementary School, East Chicago Lighthouse, and Eugene Field Elementary School -- ranked in the study's first percentile, among the most polluted air. * * *

The suit seeks unspecified damages and asks the court to order a medical monitoring program to help protect children's health at the defendants' expense.

Attorney Beth A. Fegan said the 11 defendants were selected based on the study by USA Today and three universities and on Environmental Protection Agency reports.

Here is a link to the USA Today Special Report on Toxic Air and America's Schools.

[Updated] Today's Gary Post-Tribune has this story by Gitte Laasby that begins:

Lake County industries pollute the air so much that schoolchildren in East Chicago face lifelong health issues, including increased risk of cancer, lung damage and mental disabilities.

So says a Seattle-based law firm. The company filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday against 11 of Lake County's biggest polluters. A Crown Point dad, Ron Kurth, filed the suit in Lake County Superior Court on behalf of parents whose children have attended Lake County schools.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 26, 2009 09:49 AM
Posted to Environment | Indiana Courts