$26 million cleanup planned for Grand Calumet River

A $26 million cleanup of a portion of the Grand Calumet River is planned to remove contaminated sediment.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced the plan for the George Lake Canal, part of the Grand Calumet River, which will dredge roughly 60,000 cubic yards of contaminated material from the waterway. The costs of the project will be shared between the EPA, the East Chicago Waterway Management District, Atlantic Richfield Company and BP Products North America.

“Through this public-private partnership, EPA, East Chicago Waterway Management District, Atlantic Richfield and BP will work together to remove more than a century’s legacy contamination, improve habitat and boost economic growth along the Grand Calumet River in Northwest Indiana,” said EPA Region 5 Administrator Cathy Stepp, who is also the Great Lake national program manager, in a statement. “This massive cleanup is a crucial step forward in restoring the river and clearly demonstrates the progress being made under the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.”

The EPA says that while it will remove contaminated sediment, the remaining material will be “capped and controlled, as needed.”

“Mayor Copeland of East Chicago, Congressman Visclosky, ECWMD Board of Directors, Atlantic Richfield and BP and EPA have been outstanding partners in the cleaning of our waterways and in the team’s hard work and effort to see this project through to fruition,” said Fernando Treviño, executive director of the East Chicago Waterway Management District, in a statement.

The Grand Calumet is on the EPA’s list as an area of concern, according to a press release, and is one of 43 hot spots in the Great Lakes basin.

The river flows through Hammond, East Chicago and Gary, and the EPA says the waterway is one of the most contaminated in the United States. The EPA says the river’s sediment is contaminated the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), oil and grease, according to a press release.

_{Source: chicagotribune.com}