Officials are working to reassure residents that South Bend’s LaSalle Park area is safe, but the Environmental Protection Agency continues to analyze the site.
The area around Beck’s Lake was once an industrial dumping ground, leaving behind lead and arsenic. The recent report from the South Bend Reparatory Justice Commission found that the area has the lowest life expectancy in St. Joseph County.
Last week, EPA representatives gave an update to the common council’s utilities committee. Remedial project manager Demaree Collier said the park is “absolutely” safe, following remediation efforts.
“The immediate risk from direct contact with this contaminated soil, ingestion, inhalation – that’s been eliminated from the time-critical removal and the appropriate capping,” Collier told council members.
A restrictive covenant aims to protect those remediation efforts, by prohibiting drilling, placing a well or planting a community garden. Outside the park, two nearby properties with elevated lead levels have also been remediated.
But standards became more stringent last year, and Collier said more residential properties will likely have to be cleaned up. “There was a new directive in the fall of 2025 that lowered the cleanup level for homes, based upon blood level levels and the risk in children, and so, looking at that, we have new, lower cleanup numbers,” Collier explained.
Still, residents were concerned about the area’s health.
Alice Pickens blamed elevated lead levels for her five-year-old niece's cancer. “And you tell me it is safe? No, I’m not buying it,” Pickens said, suggesting that more homes might need to be tested.
Meanwhile, Tiana Batiste-Waddell felt South Bend should expedite its response to the reparatory justice report, generally. "This has been happening for 100 years," Batiste-Waddell said. "People have died. . . . We have kids in the hospital with cancer. This has been happening for 100-plus years."
Going forward, EPA representatives promised to hold a community meeting this fall. They also expressed interest in forming a technical assistance group with area residents.
