Superfund2023

Commissioned by Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive as part of Century of 16mm. A camera roll and investigation into the landscape of West Chicago, IL’s former Rare Earth’s Facility, Kress Creek and Reed-Keppler Park. The former Lindsay Light and Chemical Company owned production plant polluted and distributed radioactive mill tailings (thorium byproduct) throughout the community including dumping in a landfill where the Reed-Keppler Park now stands, near the West Chicago Community High School, as well as in the West Chicago Sewage Treatment Plant, which resulted in runoff into the West Branch of the DuPage River and into floodplains such as the yards of homeowners. Mill tailings are effectively radioactive sand that can easily be carried by wind into bodies of water, the air we breathe or onto food grown nearby. Clean up of the Superfund sites occurred from 2005-2012 but prior to this West Chicago reportedly had elevated rates of cancer.