Residents of an East Chicago, Indiana, housing project are infuriated that they were not informed for a year and a half that the soil in their complex had extremely high levels of lead that were endangering their children.

In July, 1,100 residents of the West Calumet Complex in the industrial town were notified by the Environmental Protection Agency that not only were they and their ,but that their complex would be demolished because of the toxicity of the lead, according to CNN.

A press release by the EPA said involvement coordinators for the agency went and provided information on ways to reduce exposure to possible lead in the soil.

In this Aug. 23, 2016 photo, a sign from the Environmental Protection Agency is posted in front of West Calumet Housing Complex houses at East Chicago, Indiana. The EPA has detected high levels of lead in samples of dust and dirt tracked inside homes where soil is tainted with industrial contaminants. The contamination has resulted in the city calling for the demolition of the low-income complex and relocating its 1,000 residents.

(AP Photo/Tae-Gyun Kim)

At a Glance

City officials and residents of East Chicago are outraged at a flawed CDC lead report that has put children at risk.The CDC determined in 2011 that lead levels at the West Calumet Complex were safe based on false information.At least 1,100 residents have been evacuated out of the 40-year-old public housing complex.

West Calumet resident Shantel Allen, 28, learned that parts of her yard hadlead levels up to 66 times above the lead limit and 55 times above the arsenic limit set by the EPA, according to CNN.

She was even more shocked when she learned that her "property was tested for lead and arsenic at the end of 2014" but only learned about the results in July.

"I was pregnant while in this complex — exposed to lead, sleeping on a contaminated bed, laying on a contaminated couch — nobody said anything. They kept this very well hidden from all of us," Allen told CNN.

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All five of her children were found to have high levels in their blood, including her 2-year-old daughter, Samira, who tested positive for lead poisoning with a level of 33 micrograms per deciliter, nearly seven times the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended threshold.

"They show all the signs and symptoms of having lead poisoning. They have fevers, chills; they vomit. ... I've taken them to the emergency room a number of times," Allen said.

Flawed CDC Report

Five years ago, a branch of the CDC, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, or ATSDR, which "conducts public health assessments to examine potential contamination risks and points the way to next steps to be taken by EPA and others," that "all but ruled out the possibility of children here getting lead poisoning," according to a report by Reuters.

The July 2011 report said “breathing the air, drinking tap water or playing in soil in neighborhoods near the USS Lead Site is not expected to harm people’s health.”

In this Aug. 30, 2016 file photo, Shantel Allen, right, a resident of the West Calumet Housing Complex reacts with her husband, Charles during a news conference in Munster, Indiana.

(AP Photo/Tae-Gyun Kim, File)

Reuters found that they were basing their conclusions, in part, on the assumption that nearly "100 percent" of the children in the area were being tested and that the health data collected indicated that the incidences of lead poisoning had decreased in recent years. However, Reuters discovered that state data showed thatthe annual rate of "blood lead testing among children in East Chicago ranged from 5 percent to 20 percent over the last 11 years."

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Not only did the report give residents a false sense of security in an area known for high levels of lead, it gave the EPA the same sense of security. According to EPA Region Five Administrator Robert Kaplan, the ATSDR report’s findings led to the EPA’s decision not to conduct more soil testing because they believed residents weren’t in any imminent risk. Instead, the EPA "focused on a multi-year plan to gradually test for and replace thelead-tainted soil," according to Reuters.

City Officials Respond

East Chicago Mayor Anthony Copeland by withholding data about the levels of lead and arsenic contamination found in the soil in the Calumet neighborhood and failing to provide adequate data for the 2011 health assessment that wrongly concluded children’s health was not at risk," according to the Northwest Indiana Times.

In this Aug. 3, 2016 file photo, Joseph Russell, 2, rides his tricycle outside his home at the West Calumet Housing Complex in East Chicago, Indiana. The mayor of this industrial town ordered the evacuation of the 40-year-old public housing complex this summer because of severe lead contamination, forcing more than 1,000 people from their homes.

(Jonathan Miano/The Times via AP, file)

The mayor ordered the evacuation of residents at the 40-year-old public housing complex in July, saying the level of lead found was too dangerous for the more than 600 children living at the complex, according to Reuters.

In July, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allocated $1.9 million to help permanently relocate residents. The state has also released another 100,000 to help residents with moving expenses, the Northwest Indiana Times also reported.

East Chicago City Attorney Carla Morgan said on Aug. 30 that more than half of the families living in the complex whowere told to relocate by Nov. 30 received HUD vouchers that became effective Sept. 1.

Allen told Reuters she and her family will be moving to Nevada next month, but the HUD voucher will not cover all of the moving expenses.

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