Today: our first "Regionally Speaking" Reporters' Roundtable discussion of the big local stories of the week, including updates on the East Chicago lead-arsenic contamination cleanup and the impact of the contamination on the West Calumet Housing Project. The EPA Secretary and HUD Secretary will visit East Chicago to see first-hand the issues and the cleanup. We also discuss the investigation into a leak of the chemical chromium-6 from a U.S. Steel waste outlet into Burns Waterway in Portage, just hundreds of feet from Lake Michigan.
The reporters in the studio -- Bill Dolan of the Times of Northwest Indiana and Lakeshore Public Radio's Steven Lattimore -- also talk about the South Shore Line expansion project, mainly the West Lake extension from Hammond south into Munster and Dyer. Dolen focuses on the local governments' contesting their proposed share of the project costs.
Bill and Steven also take up the topics of the financial problems in the Gary Community School Corp. and of bills moving through the 2017 General Assembly that would affect both school district administration and School Board.
We also bring back our conversation about the upcoming "Logs to Lustrons 2 Tour" in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore on May 13th and 14th. It's sponsored by Indiana Landmarks and the National Park Service and features a dozen landmarks spanning over a century of architecture, including restored residences not normally open to the public and vacant landmarks in need of a new use.
