A Southwest Side mom is declaring victory after spending three years warning about peeling lead paint at viaduct passageways where children walk on their way to and from school.
Alejandra Frausto’s campaign was featured in a Sun-Times story in June. Her persistence finally paid off as the railroad that owns the viaduct — with passageways from 63rd to 67th streets along Central Park Avenue — recently agreed to clean up the areas where thousands of paint chips litter the ground.
Work has already begun. Viaduct owner CSX Transportation “developed a plan to stabilize the paint” and “begin sealing” it, the company said in a statement.
Frausto said she was told by CSX that it will remediate two areas before winter and the remainder of the viaduct cleanup will be complete by next summer.
After city officials downplayed concerns about the problem and passed responsibility for the cleanup to the railroad, CSX did its own testing this summer, Frausto said, adding that the results were described to her by a company representative.
“What we said is ‘Look, your results mirror ours,’” Frausto said. “High levels of lead. It’s clear.”
The viaduct areas were tested by Frausto and her sixth-grade students in 2019 when she was a teacher at nearby Eberhart Elementary School. The students found high concentrations of brain-damaging lead at levels hundreds of times higher than what would be considered safe for interior house paint.
That house paint standard doesn’t apply to many industrial uses, such as the lead paint on the viaduct, but children’s health experts told the Sun-Times that the presence of lead paint still poses risk, especially if children track lead dust into their homes.
During a visit earlier this year, children passed under the viaduct locations as paint chips dangled from the ceilings. A mother pushed her baby in a stroller during the same visit.
Frausto first asked for help from Ald. Silvana Tabares (23rd), who wrote to Chicago Public Health Commissioner Allison Arwady in 2019. But the health department punted the issue to the Chicago Department of Transportation, which said CSX owned the structure and should address the problem.
In August, Tabares ordered a power washing of one of the viaducts, an action that infuriated Frausto because it spread paint chips.
“We were working hard to make sure they didn’t just go in and blast it — that they would go in and safely remediate it,” Frausto said.
Tabares hasn’t explained why she requested the power wash and she didn’t respond to attempts to contact her.
One environmental expert praised Frausto.
“Anytime you have people who can find a problem and act on it, it’s a good thing,” said Nicholas Peneff, who owns Chicago environmental consultant Public Health & Safety.
Brett Chase’s reporting on the environment and public health is made possible by a grant from The Chicago Community Trust.
