HAMMOND | Man's alteration of the region's waterways has resulted in artificial lakes, the reversal of flow in rivers, draining of wetlands for farming and loss of wildlife and habitat, a local historian said Wednesday.
Indiana University Northwest professor Kenneth Schoon spoke on the topic of "The Waters of the Calumet Region" as part of Purdue Calumet University's seminar series, Go with the Flow - Get to Know Our Indiana Coastal Resources.
The series is sponsored by the PUC School of Engineering, Mathematics and Science through a grant from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources' Indiana Lake Michigan Coastal Program.
"We just want to inform the public on our coastal resources, how we have managed them and how they influence us," said Diane Trgovcich-Zacok, adviser/recruiter for the PUC School of Engineering, Mathematics and Science.
Schoon went through the history of man's involvement in the region's waterways beginning with the 19th century building of dams for mills, which resulted in the creation of mill lakes like Valparaiso's Sager Lake.
He went on to detail the efforts in the 19th century and early 20th century to build canals to connect the region's waterways to Lake Michigan and other river systems leading to the Mississippi River. This has resulted in the alteration of how rivers flow, and in the case of the Little Calumet River, in the reversal of a river's flow from Lake Michigan.
"The canal building period is a very important part of our state history," Schoon said. Canal building in the early 19th century forced the state into debt, Schoon said. But the canals were rendered useless by 1848 when trains started coming in.
Other topics touched on were the draining of the Kankakee Marsh wetlands and the straightening of the Kankakee River to open up farmland in the early 20th century. Schoon also spoke about the draining of wetlands along the Little Calumet River in the early 20th century to prevent flooding. Both acts resulted in the loss of a great deal of wildlife and habitat, Schoon said.
