Groundswell Educational Films » DePue Lake Cleanup Project

DePue Lake Cleanup Project

Update:See the new website: Cleanup DePue
Groundswell is working with residents and the Mayor in the Village of DePue, Illinois. Home to a now shuttered zinc mill and it’s vast mound of contaminated waste, this tiny hamlet of 1,800 mostly minorities has been declared a Superfund site. The long promised cleanup, delayed for more than a decade, remains a pipe dream. Contaminants from the waste permeate groundwater and seep into Lake DePue, a precious natural resource.
The Village, local schools, and Northwestern University’s environmental law and chemistry programs invited Groundswell to lead a new media campaign that will give voice to residents and put pressure on the responsible parties, Exxon and CBS/Viacom.

NEWS MEDIA

We made the issue visible through this website, and earned lots of local news stories, and national media attention from several outlets, including a 2-part series on Univision and these recent articles in
The New Yorker
STAT News

The New Republic

EDUCATION

With the Chemistry Department at Northwestern University, we published a curriculum in the Journal of Chemistry Education. Watch what happens when high school chemistry students learn about DePue and the soil and water contaminants there.