Flooded and forgotten, a Chicago faith group fights pollution with prayer, plants, and people power

After a historic flood drenched Cicero in sewage and toxic runoff, local Catholics launched an environmental justice movement to protect their community.

Cassidy Klein reports for National Catholic Reporter.

In short:

A group called Voces Fieles Comunitarias Contra la Opresión (Faithful Community Voices Against Oppression) formed after 2023 floods overwhelmed Cicero’s aging sewers, leaving homes filled with raw sewage.
Inspired by Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’, the group educates neighbors on environmental hazards like toxic emissions from the Koppers coal tar plant and helps residents apply for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
They’re using phytoremediation — planting rain gardens that soak up pollutants — to clean the air, soil, and water while mapping community risks like underground storage tanks and cancer clusters.

Key quote:

“Why do our kids have asthma? You live within feet of Koppers, which emits cancer. You live right next door to an open waste management facility, which includes medical supplies. People are breathing this with their children. What about all the toxic fumes that we breathe with the sewage and that comes into our homes?”

— Delia Barajas, co-founder of Voces

Why this matters:

Environmental harms don’t hit all ZIP codes equally. In Cicero, pollution, flooding, and cancer risks are colliding, and community-led responses may be residents' best chance to protect themselves and their families. This is environmentalism rooted in real lives, where clean water and breathable air are survival issues, not distant policy debates.

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Flooded and forgotten, a Chicago faith group fights pollution with prayer, plants, and people power

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