By Delia Barajas, Mercy associate
Imagine contaminated floodwater surging into your home: Raw sewage and other pollutants swirling in three feet of water that fill the streets outside your door and flow in your kitchen and basement.
My neighbors and I in Cicero, Illinois, lived through that on July 2, 2023, when nearly nine inches of rain fell in just six hours.
Our community is still recovering.
Neglect of the antiquated sewer and drainage systems is partly to blame for the catastrophe in our town, a Chicago suburb, which is mostly working class and made up of immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere.
I cofounded Voces Fieles Comunitarias Contra la Opresión (Faithful Community Voices Against Oppression) in 2023 to speak up for my community and Mother Earth, to build our influence and improve the quality of life.
Our guiding principle is “the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor are one,” from Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’. Our faith in our Loving God inspires us.
Voces team members bring their faith, talents, passion and commitment to making our Earth a better place for all of creation.
Empowering community members
At one of our first meetings after the flood, we gave away rain barrels and demonstrated how to collect and store stormwater. We also educated parishioners about how native plants prevent flooding and protect water quality, thanks to their deep roots—some as long as 12 feet.
Voces works with community members to map stormwater surges and urban flooding. We write, call and meet with government officials to ensure our voices are heard.
We seek information on pollutants in the nearby Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which protects Chicago’s drinking water by routing sewage and wastewater away from Lake Michigan, and in the local Stickney Water Reclamation Plant, the largest wastewater treatment plant in the world.
These issues affect not just Cicero but everyone in Greater Chicago. The treatment plant serves 2.3 million people in a 260-square-mile area, and the public increasingly uses the ship canal for recreation.
Voces, which is now part of Freshwater Futures, a nonprofit dedicated to safeguarding water around the Great Lakes, empowers and informs people throughout the region, including the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas and Mercy Associates.
I became an associate after some Mercy sisters took part in a walk against gun violence in Cicero after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in 2023. They continue to accompany us in the work of Voces.
Healing life in a sacrifice zone
People living in sacrifice zones, areas used as dumping grounds for waste and hazardous materials that are kept out of more affluent communities, can feel powerless, but they are stronger working together.
I reached out to a researcher in Flint, Michigan, who had helped families there deal with concerning levels of lead in their drinking water.
As a result, about 100 Cicero residents participated in a monitoring project. One household discovered extra-high lead levels in their water and then elevated levels in their bodies as well. In response, the town replaced some lead pipes.
There’s no safe level of lead. Even so, many families, including pregnant women and children must contend with continued lead exposure in our soil, homes and drinking water.
As a mother of six and grandmother of 14, I consider the community’s young people in everything I do.
What terrifies me and keeps me up at night is what our youth experience daily by living in a sacrifice zone of toxic pollutants. Our families have every right to live the same high quality of life as affluent communities do.
The only way all our children will have a better future is if we stand up together and do our part to ensure clean, living water and a living Earth.