The Hills Film Screening
Join the Office of Community Affairs, the Department of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism, , and other partners at the on April 23, 2025, at 5 p.m. in The MTCC Auditorium for the screening of .
When the steel mills on Â鶹APP’s Southeast Side closed decades ago, they left behind toxic sites that look harmless to the naked eye. Deriving its title from a deserted 67-acre hill made up of slag that Republic Steel/LTV dumped there during the 1950s–80s, The Hills is a place-based documentary where contaminated land, water, and wildlife play a leading role alongside the voices of community members. Easily mistaken for gravel, slag is a byproduct of steelmaking and contains arsenic, chromium, lead, and other toxins. Recently declared a superfund site by the EPA, the abandoned Schroud property has long attracted heavy recreational use and toxins from the slag continue to leach into the adjacent Indian Creek. Providing a rich habitat for fish, beavers, and birds, Indian Creek links Wolf Lake, a major recreational fishing area, to the Calumet River which in turn connects to Lake Michigan, Â鶹APP’s source of drinking water. The Hills uses this singular site as a starting point to consider the area’s industrial history, labor, and current environmental justice struggles, including the fight against General Iron and the proposed expansion of the Army Corps of Engineer’s Confined Disposal Facility (CDF) right at the shore of Lake Michigan, the source of Â鶹APP's drinking water.
There will be a post-film discussion with the filmmaker, moderated by Assistant Professor of Biology Matt Smith of Lewis College of Science and Letters.