EAST CHICAGO —
Because its own studies predict air emissions from
a proposed facility that will store millions of cubic yards of
contaminated muck will fall below current legal limits for air
quality, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have not included a
system to control such emissions.
As of now, the corps is simply not required under federal
and state regulations to have a system in place to monitor
levels of such deadly toxins as ammonia, cyanide, manganese,
arsenic, lead and mercury once its proposed confined disposal
facility (CDF) begins to accept contaminated sludge in two
years.
The CDF will sit in close proximity to schools and
neighborhoods in East Chicago and Whiting.
However, a new study conducted by Northwestern University
for the Chicago Law Clinic at the Chicago-Kent College of Law
takes aim at the corps’ stance of not having such monitoring
equipment, citing the health risks to residents, especially
children.
“There are serious questions about the safety of the nearby
children who themselves represent an at-risk population for
asthma and other respiratory ailments,” the study states. “The
30-year time period that will elapse before air emissions are
finally controlled will have consequences for at least three
generations of children.”
The study was performed by Todd Waldrop, a graduate student
of Northwestern University’s Department of Environmental
Engineering in the fall.
Waldrop said the Corps estimates are based on a model used
to determine chemical losses from soils that received
petroleum wastes in a land-farming process, not for CDFs.
“I think the study is very good. All (Waldrop) did was look
at one part (of the project), air emissions,” said Betty
Balanoff, a vocal CDF opponent who contacted the Chicago Law
Clinic to do the study.
Christine Brooks, who sits on the East Chicago Waterway
Management Board, said she has not fully examined the study.
Brooks said there are some monitors already in place,
including at nearby East Chicago Central High School, that
monitors the air quality.
Bill White, the Army Corps’ project manager for the CDF
project, says the Corps is developing more refined plans in
how it will handle the sediment.
The CDF will be built on 134 acres of land once owned by
Energy Cooperative Industries of East Chicago at the northwest
side of Indianapolis Boulevard and the bridge of the Indiana
Harbor and Ship Canal.
The canal was last dredged in 1972 and the build up of
sediment has made navigation difficult for cargo ships.
While most agree the canal must be dredged, there has been
much debate as to the safety of storing such contaminants
close to neighborhoods.
The project is led by the Army Corps, with the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, the Indiana Department of
Environmental Management and the East Chicago Waterway
Management District major participants.
Once dredging begins in 2005, it will continue for some 30
years before it is to be capped.
