Great Lakes
Site Information
- Hammond, IN (Lake County)
- Grand Calumet River AOC
- Status: Cleanup ongoing
- Map showing cleanup areas (PDF) (1 pg, 91K)
- Aerial view
Contact
Scott Ireland
(ireland.scott@epa.gov)
Great Lakes National Program Office
312-886-8121
Grand Calumet River Legacy Act Cleanup
Grand Calumet River Area of Concern
Progress of work on a section of the river between Calumet and Columbia Avenue. (Click to enlarge)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes National Program Office, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Indiana Departments of Environmental Management and Natural Resources have recently completed the sediment remediation of a heavily polluted one-mile stretch of the West Branch Grand Calumet River in Hammond. This is a very unique region as it is one of the most industrialized areas in the country as well as home to some of the most diverse native plant and animal communities in the Great Lakes Basin. This project (phase I) resulted in the removal of just under 55,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment followed by the placement of a cap, or isolation barrier, covering approximately 94,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment. The result is the effective remediation of just under 150,000 cubic yards of sediment contaminated with pollutants such as PCBs and PAHs (polychlorinated biphenyls and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), heavy metals, and pesticides.
This $31.1 million phase of the project was funded under the Great Lakes Legacy Act (GLLA). EPA provided 65 percentof the funds for this project under the Act with The State of Indiana contributing 35 percent of the project cost using Natural Resources Damage Assessment funds. EPA's Great Lakes National Program Office, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources were cooperating partners in this effort.
You will need Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more.
Documents
- Legacy Act Grand Calumet River Cleanup gets Underway (PDF) (2 pp, 591K) December 2009
- Legacy Act project targets Grand Calumet River (PDF) (2 pp, 574K) October 2008
- Meeting on Grand Calumet River cleanup June 2 - May 26, 2011 news release
- EPA and Indiana announce $33 million cleanup of Grand Cal River - Oct. 21, 2008 news release