E.C. marsh cleanup to be finished by summer

EAST CHICAGO | Environmental cleanup at Roxana Marsh and an adjacent stretch of the Grand Calumet River remains on schedule with native trees and other vegetation set to be reintroduced this summer, project officials said Wednesday.

Some 123,000 cubic yards of river bottom contaminated by more than a century of industrial discharges already has been removed through the joint federal/state initiative, said Diana Mally, project manager with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Workers are in the midst of removing another 100,000 cubic yards of sediment from the marsh itself, once a nationally known shore bird nesting habitat, Mally said.

Restoration of the 25-acre wetland is the latest phase of an $80 million multiyear remediation effort by the EPA and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. The Department of Natural Resources is expected to clean up the Grand Calumet area east of the Illinois state line.

Residents got an update on the project, and a chance to meet the scientists and engineers working in their neighborhood, at a Wednesday open house in the Knights of Columbus Hall.

Beginning next month, a cover of clean sand and clay will be laid on the dredged river bottom, Mally said, putting a nearly 2-foot barrier between any toxins remaining in the sediment and water flowing above.

In July, plans call for native grasses and flowers — along with more than 150 trees and shrubs — to be planted as replacements for the invasive alien phragmites australis, which has choked off much of the naturally occurring plant life in the marsh.

The area will then be patrolled by DNR staff to keep the natural water lilies, black-eyed susans, blue-flag iris and pickerelweed from being overcome by the phragmites.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is assisting in the project, predicts an eventual return of the herons, egrets and other fishing birds that once nested and raised their young there.

"The community has been very encouraging," said Scott Ireland, a scientist with EPA's Great Lakes National Program Office who has worked on the river cleanup for the past seven years. "The harshest criticism we've had has been, 'What's taking you so long?'"

Last fall the EPA installed an odor-control system along the perimeter of the work area after reports from neighbors of stronger-than-usual petroleum smells.

The restoration project next moves east of Indianapolis Boulevard, from Kennedy Avenue to Cline Avenue along the former E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. chemical plant property, said IDEM scientist James Smith.

Design for the eastern branch phase is about halfway done, Smith said, and his office is working with the Shirley Heinze Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy — nonprofit environmental organizations that hold easements on hundreds of adjacent riverfront acres.

EPA contributed $32.5 million of the total $50 million cost of the Roxana area cleanup through the federal Great Lakes Legacy Act, a law enacted by Congress in 2002 to restore beneficial uses to polluted areas of the Great Lakes.

The remaining $17.5 million comes from fines collected over the years from existing and former industries along the river. The money has been put into an escrow account administered by IDEM and DNR.