Posted on July 12, 2023
EAST CHICAGO — An egret landed on the orange oil-containment booms that snake along the shore of the Lake George Canal.
“That’s an early sign that wildlife is starting to come back,” Jason Zylka said, pointing to the elegant white bird. “If they are already using the area now, I can’t wait to see it in a couple of years.”
The Grand Calumet has long been considered one of the nation’s most polluted rivers. Throughout the past decade, local, state and federal agencies have been working to improve the 13-mile waterway. A ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday marked an important remediation milestone: the capping of 115,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment in the Lake George Canal.
“For too long, residents of Northwest Indiana, many in underserved and overburdened communities, have dealt with the legacy of the Calumet River’s industrialization and pollution,” said Debra Shore, the administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 5 office.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the EPA, the East Chicago Waterway Management District and Atlantic Richfield–BP partnered on the remediation. The EPA funded the majority of the $21 million Lake George project, using money from the agency’s Great Lakes National Program Office.
Natalie Mills, project manager with the Army Corps, said work on the Lake George Canal began in spring 2022. Remediation efforts included capping the contaminated sediment, removing invasive plants from the shoreline and installing a “wetland shelf.”
Zylka, an ecologist with the Army Corps, said the wetland shelf is a semi-circle of native wetland vegetation planted near the shoreline. This fall, both sides of the canal will be seeded with native grasses, such as prairie dropseed, big bluestem and various bulrushes.
The Grand Calumet River has “been hurt by decades of industry,” said Carl Wodrich, a deputy assistant commissioner with the IDEM. “We’ve seen the negative impact we as people can do, but today is a sign of the positive impacts that we as people can make.”
The Grand Calumet River runs through some of the most industrial land in the country.
“From ice-mining operations to steelworks, for generations the Grand Calumet area was home to a range of the world’s largest company headquarters and factories,” Shore said. “In an era of unregulated waste disposal, the Grand Calumet River and the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal were treated like open sewers and garbage dumps by these massive industries.”
U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan, D-Highland, said there was a time when bubbling oil was visible in the Grand Calumet.
While the Clean Water Act of 1972 brought a wave of industrial regulation, decades of contamination remained in the river’s sediment.
Oils, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals have been found at the bottom of the Lake George Canal.
In 1987, the Grand Calumet River became one of the EPA’s 31 Great Lakes Areas of Concern. Characterized by environmental degradation, AOCs contain what the EPA calls Beneficial Use Impairments. The agency has identified 14 BUIs, ranging from beach closings to habitat loss.
Carl Wodrich, a deputy assistant commissioner with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management; Debra Shore, EPA regional administrator and manager of the Great Lakes National Program; Col. Paul Culberson of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Indiana Rep. Carolyn Jackson; and U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan, D-Highland, cut the ribbon Monday for the Lake George Canal remediation project.
At one point, the Grand Calumet River was the only Great Lakes AOC to have all 14 BUIs.
Two BUIs — the restrictions on drinking water and the added cost to agriculture or industry — have been removed from the Grand Calumet’s list. To be completely delisted as an AOC, all 14 BUIs must be removed; the EPA has identified 12 sediment remediation and five habitat restoration projects that must be completed before the Grand Calumet can be delisted.
The Lake George Canal capping is the fifth sediment project to be completed; five more are underway.
The Army Corps has already dredged some sediment from the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal and from Lake George East. The second phase of Lake George East dredging will involve the removal of 40,000 cubic yards of sediment and will likely begin in 2025, Mills said.
Habitat restoration has played a vital role in the broader Grand Calumet remediation project.
Located where the deciduous forest, boreal forest and tall grasslands biomes meet, the landscape surrounding the Grand Calumet River is home to a diverse array of plant and animal species. The river and Lake Michigan also serve as a major migratory pathway for thousands of birds every year.
Debra Shore, EPA regional administrator and manager of the Great Lakes National Program, addresses the ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday for the Lake George Canal remediation project.
“The Chicago shoreline is like a highway for migrating birds,” Zylka explained.
The native vegetation the Army Corps is planting along the Lake George shoreline will give birds and other wildlife a place to “eat, rest and feel safe,” he said.
Mrvan thanked all the local and federal agencies for their collaboration.
“This is the first step of many steps to make Northwest Indiana cleaner and more environmentally sound,” he said as terns dived for fish in the canal behind him.
PHOTOS: Lake George Canal ribbon-cutting
Ribbon-cutting ceremony for Lake George Canal remediation
Indiana Rep. Carolyn Jackson addresses the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Lake George Canal remediation project.
