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EAST CHICAGO — EPA officials said Wednesday four families at the West Calumet Housing Complex are preparing to accept the federal agency’s offer to deep clean their homes, and every resident eventually will have an opportunity to do the same.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has prioritized which families will receive the deep cleaning first based on a number of factors, including whether a pregnant woman or any children younger than 6 lives in the home, what the level of contamination is in the soil outside the home and whether anyone in the home has recent test results showing elevated blood-lead levels, said Brad Benning, on-scene coordinator for EPA Region 5.

Many experts consider any level of lead in the blood unsafe, and pregnant women and children younger than 6 are particularly at risk of lead poisoning. The city and EPA released data last week showing lead contamination in the soil at nearly every property in West Calumet exceeds EPA’s threshold of 1,200 parts per million for an emergency cleanup.

Two families plan to relocate temporarily to a hotel Friday, and two more plan to leave Monday while an EPA contractor deep-cleans their homes to remove any lead- or arsenic-contaminated dust, Benning said.