Toxic Water Leaves Illinois Neighborhood Abandoned For Years
An upscale Chicago Surburn neighborhood is left abandoned due to a toxic leak from a poorly built landfill, and 30-years later some of the houses still remain.
Most of the houses are boarded and some have in the neighborhood have been torn down, but your get to see what an upscale luxury neighborhood looks like after all the families who live in the houses up and left due to toxic water leaks. In some of the comments, one person who works the grounds during the time of all of this craziness said,
There was a landfill directly west of the properties. The landfill was not properly built. Vinyl chloride was found to have gone from the landfill into the water wells of the homes. A water line was constructed in the late 80s providing city water to the houses, but people still ended up leaving.
The neighborhood seemed to be thriving when a poorly built landfill started leaking toxic chemicals called vinyl chloride, according to an article I found from the Chicago Tribune from 1989. Many of the homes have wells that were covered and not in use, and the city tried to water lines to each home, but many of the families left anyway.
So now, all the remains are empty houses and a ton of land, which is monitored by the local law enforcement. many explorers have come to this abandoned neighborhood to see what it left (which is not much) but there are plans to tear down all of the homes and just keep it open land. Currently, in the comments from the video,
the neighboring prairie wants to keep the land free of development, and the houses should be torn down soon.