Just weeks after the Chicago Bears’ Board of Directors made history by voting to advance a multi-billion-dollar stadium relocation to Northwest Indiana, the franchise’s dream of a shiny new domed playground has collided with a toxic wasteland reality.

In a recent comedic sketch experiment carried out by Eric Sollenberger, aka PFT Commenter, and his assistant Zach from Pardon My Take on the soil and water samples, they validated the findings of environmentalists about lead contamination in the soil and potential arsenic contamination in the water.

“So, that's the lead. That looks like Looks like we're at the end of the lead. That looks like a ton of lead. Am I wrong? Can we rinse that off? I think that the color on that is dark. That looks like a lot of lead to me. We couldn't be more in the lead.”

Both PFT and Zach stopped at Hammond, the proposed site of the new Bears stadium. From the site, they collected ‌soil and water samples to test them for lead and arsenic contamination.

For the experiment, they used the lead and arsenic testing kit. First, they carried out the arsenic contamination test.

In the test, they use a 100 ml sample of water, then add the reagents sequentially (purple, green, then red caps), give it a 10-second swirl, and leave the solution for 30 minutes.

Followed by the lead swab test, where they put a cotton swab in the soil for 30 seconds and rinsed the excess soil with water till the heavy lead deposits were recorded.

Based on their experiment, they found out that the soil is heavily contaminated with lead and not fit for construction.

Although their test for arsenic was inconclusive, as it was asking for an app download, to which PFT was not so pleased.

How Arlington Heights Factored Into the Bears’ Stadium Search

Before finalizing Hammond, Indiana, the Bears were thinking of going with Arlington Heights, Illinois, for the site of the new Bears stadium. 

As Hammond comes with contamination concerns, the Heights had its own set of problems. 

Back in 2021, the Bears started off with their search for the stadium site, and the deal was moving on with full momentum for Arlington Heights.

A Chicago suburb, which is home to Arlington Park, a former horse racetrack, which the Bears had purchased. 

An ideal site, but they paused their plans as the Illinois state government refused to grant them the specific property tax breaks and infrastructure funding the Bears demanded.

Although the Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and state lawmakers have kept the doors open for negotiations and re-engagement of the deal, the five-year-old saga still continues.

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Written by

Kunwar Yashaswee Chhaunker