Tagged: rubbertown health

For 35 years, the Lees Lane Landfill in Southwest Louisville took in everything the city wanted to throw out, from household trash to toxic chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates more than two million cubic yards of waste went into the landfill. And though it’s been closed and remediated, there are still unanswered questions about contamination at the site.

The neighborhood Riverside Gardens was created as an oasis in the West End…a resort community for Louisvillians who wanted a quick, close getaway from the city. But after the 1937 flood and the rise of industry in Rubbertown, to the north, Riverside Gardens became just another subdivision. And now, the place where city dwellers used to go to get away from pollution is now surrounded on three sides by smokestacks and a former toxic dump.

Louisville was a dirty place in the 1920s.

Seventy years ago, in the early days of Rubbertown, there were a lot of dirty jobs. But no job was dirtier than an entry-level post at the B.F. Goodrich plant. Workers called “poly cleaners” climbed into large vats that had held the chemical vinyl chloride to clean them. And now, decades later, some of these men—they’re all men—have developed serious liver problems. At least 26 of them have developed cancer, and all have died from it.

One of them was Janet Crecelius Johnson’s husband, Revis.