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There was once a place called Chicago, IL. It 

was a very big and busy place. It held over 

2.17 million people!! With all those people the 

government had to make sure that it was a 

safe place to live. They had to check their air, 

water, land, and quality of life.  

When they would go to check their land they 

would mark superfund and brownfield sites. A 

superfund site is a site where toxic wastes have 

been dumped and the Environmental Protection 

Agency has designated them to be cleaned up. 

A Brownfield Site is real property, the 

expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which 

may be complicated by the presence or 

potential presence of a hazardous substance, 

pollutant, or contaminant.

The town of Chicago had many superfund and 

brownfield sites. Just look at them all!! 

In Chicago they also had to make sure the 

air they were breathing was ok. They would 

check for different chemicals in the air, how 

the ozone was, and how much pollutants 

they were putting in the air. They made a 

Clean Air Act to make sure that they were 

taking care of the earth. The Clean Air Act 

makes cars not put out as much exhaust, 

protects the ozone, helps with noise 

pollution, reduced acid rain, and made the 

EPA make the air stay free of air born 

pollutants. This helped them breath nice 

clean air. 

They had their very own chart to show the 

people how their air quality was. They would 

then show them what their air was for that 

day. The higher up the chart the better. 

Chicago's air was not bad but it wasn't the 

best either. They had trace elements of radon 

in their air and they had a lot of pollution in 

their air. They used AQI, or Air Quality Index, 

to show their air quality. As you can see by the 

color they had moderate air but thought it 

would get better. 

Chicago got most their water from Lake 

Michigan. Lake Michigan is one of The Great 

Lakes in the United States. Because they got 

their water from a big lake they had to clean it. 

Sometimes the water would come out cloudy 

which was not good for the people. It also had 

mercury which came from all the fish in the lake. 

Mercury is very bad for humans to be around. It 

also contained PCBs that came from the fish so 

the water had to be cleaned extra good so the 

people could drink it. They would make a chart 

to show the people the quality of the water like 

they did the air. 

In Chicago 61/1000 people would get cancer due to 

the air they breathed. 9.3/1000 infants died 

because of malnutrition. 90.9/1000 babies were 

born way underweight which is the number one 

reason a baby dies soon after birth. Chicago has 

elevated lead levels in their city. They have a higher 

than average amount of people living with diabetes 

and asthma. Also higher amount of people with 

tuberculosis. 

So what are we going to do 

about all this bad stuff???? 

?

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???

??????

????

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So we know that we have a problem with 

the water. It is cloudy and it had 

substantial amounts of mercury in it. 

We need to target the people who clean 

the water for the town of Chicago. Because 

they are in charge of cleaning their water 

they need to know how to make the water 

its very best. 

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