EAST CHICAGO | Industries along the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal which use the waterways for transportation likely will soon have to pay for the convenience.
The East Chicago Waterway Management District, local sponsor of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to dredge the harbor and canal, needs money for its share of the $150 million cost of the project. It is looking to establish user fees as one of several revenue streams.
An analysis of all properties along the harbor and canal has been completed, attorney Thomas John, a partner with the Indianapolis law firm Ice Miller, told the waterway board last week, paving the way for assessing charges.
John was hired by waterway district directors in 2007 to seek sources of nonfederal funding for the 30-year project, which involves dredging some 4.6 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment from the harbor and canal. The material would be permanently stored in a disposal facility under construction along Indianapolis Boulevard at Riley Road.
Though the project has been completely federally funded since 2005, just how much the local sponsors owe the Army Corps as their share of costs incurred before that time has been disputed.
As part of his contract with the waterway board, John hired real estate appraisers and accountants to evaluate work performed over the 15 years prior to full federal funding to determine the local district's debt.
A full report on these "expense credits" should be turned over to the corps within days, John said last week.
Other potential sources of revenue include tipping fees to store hazardous material from sources other than the harbor and canal in the disposal facility, possibly from a cleanup of ArcelorMittal docking areas and a planned environmental dredging of the Grand Calumet River.
Attempts to secure a part of the $24 million 1995 federal consent decree against the former Inland Steel Co. for pollution of the harbor and canal, though close to being worked out, are in a holding pattern at the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice, John said.
"The speed of government plods along rather than gallops," said John.
Dredging is scheduled to begin some time in 2011, and the waterway district has just $6.7 million remaining in a trust fund established by Sinclair/Atlantic Richfield Co., operators of a former refinery at the disposal site, for property cleanup.
