Posted on June 11, 2020
EAST CHICAGO — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to dredge another 182,300 cubic yards of sediment from the Indianan Harbor Ship Canal this year.
It has dredged approximately 1.6 million cubic yards of sediment from the canal since 2012.
“The current forecast to start is in July,” said Fernando Treviño, executive director for the East Chicago Waterway Management District (ECWMD).
The dredging is necessary because industry in the area had not been able to ship its barges at full capacity.
“They had to ship some of their merchandise or resources at half or other levels because they would hit bottom,” Treviño said.
Next phase of East Chicago dredging project to begin mid-June
The thought was that going back to the federal navigation depth would spur the economy and help local industries be more efficient.
“We’ve heard that they have been able to be more cost effective,” Treviño said.
Until the corps began annual dredging operations in 2012, the IHSC had not been dredged since 1972.
Contaminated sediment in the canal and the lack of a suitable disposal facility for it did not allow for dredging to take place.
The completion of a confined disposal facility (CDF) by the corps in 2011 made dredging possible.
The CDF is located in East Chicago and can hold up to 2.7 million cubic yards of dredged contaminated sediment. It is expected that the corps will at some point add a second lift to CDF dikes to increase capacity to roughly 4.8 million cubic yards.
The Navigational Dredging Project is one of two main projects of the ECWMD, which was created in 1994 in part to supervise the commercial, industrial and recreational development of East Chicago waterways.
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The East Chicago Waterway Cleanup Project addresses the decades of industrial and municipal discharges that have resulted in contaminated sediments in not only the IHSC, but also the Grand Calumet River (GCR) and the Lake George Canal (LGC) and has affected both economic development and recreational use in the waterways.
Contaminants such as ammonia, arsenic, cyanide, E-coli, PCBs, lead, pesticides, oil and grease have all been detected through past testing.
In 2013, the ECWMD and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) entered in to a Great Lakes Legacy Act (GLLA) Project Agreement so that a Remedial Investigation, a Feasibility Study and a Remedial Design could be conducted for the GCR, IHSC and LGC.
The agreement allows for the EPA to provide federal funding and work when non-federal sponsors provide cash, work or in-kind contributions.
While the Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study have been completed, the Remedial Design and Remedial Action can only be completed as funding is available.
In 2020, it is expected that approximately 40,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment will be removed from the east section of the Lake George Canal.
Industries or stakeholders who have ongoing or future projects along the waterways that might count toward in-kind credit are encouraged to contact Treviño at fmtconsulting@aol.com.
Source: nwitimes
