Canal in danger of more contamination
This story ran on nwitimes.com on Friday, February 25, 2005 1:18 AM CST
EAST CHICAGO | A fracturing sea wall along the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal has put local, state and federal agencies in crisis mode.The World War II-era steel barrier just west of Indianapolis Boulevard has bowed nearly 3 feet since January, and officials are worried contaminated soil from the former refinery there will leak into the canal, which joins Lake Michigan and the Grand Calumet River.
"We regard this as an emergency situation," said Bill White, project manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, at a Wednesday meeting of the city's Waterway Management District Board.The board is local sponsor of a plan by the corps and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to dispose of 4.6 million cubic yards of polluted sediment dredged from the harbor and canal at the former Sinclair/Atlantic Richfield site there."We realize the canal is not in pristine condition," said Steve West, project specialist with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.The harbor and canal have long been considered the most polluted area in the Great Lakes system, according to an international agency that oversees Great Lakes issues.Legal permits from the state must be obtained before the corps can implement even a temporary solution -- the piling of 1,500 cubic yards of stone against the failing sea wall -- a process that will take about 60 days, West said.White said the corps has applied for the water quality permit in the name of the Waterway Management District and is waiting to hear from the state's Department of Natural Resources. He said a contract for the emergency work should be granted in the next few days.Although emergency work on the sea wall is not part of the corps' dredging and disposal plan, the agency is taking the lead in getting the work done, with the estimated $200,000 cost to be paid through the corps' project budget.When construction of a groundwater barrier around the planned confined disposal facility at the site is completed, the stone will be removed. "We wanted a permanent, not a temporary fix," West said. "But we learned there is no permanent fix until the (groundwater) barrier is installed." "In order to protect the waterway, we need to make sure that sea wall stays intact and in place," White said.A combination of age, freezing and thawing, and this year's heavy snow and rain are likely suspects in the shifting of the sea wall.
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