Efforts to clean up a dilapidated former factory building in a westside South Bend neighborhood continue, as officials plan more testing of the contaminants inside.
At the same time, federal funding for the project could be lost under a Trump Administration executive order last month.
From 1908 through the mid-’80s, South Bend Range built stoves in a factory at 133 Cherry Street. The concrete, brick and steel building has sat vacant since.
After part of the roof collapsed in 2022, the St. Joseph County Health Department asked the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to investigate. IDEM called in the EPA, which has added the site to its Superfund list.
So far the EPA has stabilized 76 55-gallon drums holding hazardous wastes, and they plan to dispose of them.
On Tuesday the city’s Board of Public Works will consider giving access to the building to the Michiana Council of Area Governments, or MACOG, which will identify more wastes with EPA funding.
About 2,600 people live within a half-mile of the site. With many of those people being of color and low-income, EPA records say it’s likely the cleanup would qualify for environmental justice funding. That’s a program created under a 2022 Biden Administration executive order. But Trump repealed the environmental justice order in February, leaving the project’s fate uncertain.
