They literally live in a side of town built on a closed down lead processing plant, the soil in those 300+ acres is contaminated
Its like that canal in Buffalo that was filled up with toxic waste, covered, developed and 30 years later "oh sh**t, we got kids getting cancer and there is something leaching out on the Elementary School Playground". That was in the late 70's.
This is all across the rust belt in one form or another. A product of pre-regulation industrialization and development of stuff using materials that were toxic (like lead pipe, asbestos insulation, etc). And typically the "oh crap, we built a school on toxic waste" is made years prior and buried for a long time until the truth is found out.
In North Binghamton, NY, there is a plaza that was built on a garbage waste dump in the 1960's. For the last 30 years or so, it's anchor was K-Mart. Apparently, there were toxic vapors emanating up from the numerous pot holes in the parking lot in the early 2010's. Anyway, it doesn't matter now because K-Mart closed that store in December. I know we went there a lot in the 1990's and early 2000's.
And of course in Endicott, NY there is a giant plume of waste underneath a substantial number of residential homes, that came from IBM's operations in the area.
All problems for the magical hand of the free market to completely cure if you'd just deregulate everything and have massive tax cuts.
