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Friday, November 11, 2005

Environment - Ethanol; Polluted land returned; Contamination exceeds expectations; Pines transfer station; Great Lakes carp; Porter County wetlands

Ethanol. The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reports today:

Wells County Council members are still waiting for key information before they decide whether to guarantee more than $50 million in bonds for a proposed ethanol plant, but Council President Pete Cole has expressed some concerns about the plan.
Polluted Land Returned. The headline to the story in the Munster (NW Indiana) Times is "Habitat for Humanity returns polluted land: Lead levels make living there unsafe." Some quotes:
The large lot west of the iron nine-span bridge on Indianapolis Boulevard and south of the Gibson railroad yard was just too polluted. * * * "The ground would have to be stripped 2 feet or more." * * * [T]he Willis Avenue property was tainted with lead -- a common problem throughout the Calumet Region, particularly near railroad tracks. It was too much lead for anyone to live there safely, according to an environmental assessment done at the site. "We're going to take responsibility for it," said Redevelopment Commission President McKinley "Mac" Nutall, in accepting the property back from Habitat for Humanity.
Contamination Exceeds Expectations. "More soil testing will raise Scribner costs: Commission OKs $8,800 for work," is the headline to a story in the Louisville Courier Journal. Some quotes:
Contamination at the Scribner Place site in New Albany is more extensive than expected, and it will cost more to test the soil there. The New Albany Redevelopment Commission approved an $8,800 increase in the soil-testing contract at a meeting Tuesday. * * *

"That's a big miss," said Jack Messer, a member of the Redevelopment Commission and the City Council, noting that the $17,600 the company is requesting is about 60 percent above the initial $28,800 contract. * * *

Nearly 14,000 tons of dirt contaminated with lead, arsenic and petroleum products has been removed from the site by Focus Contracting Inc. in the last three weeks and taken to the Outer Loop Landfill in Louisville. The excavation is ahead of schedule and within its $515,000 budget, according to John Rosenbarger, director of the redevelopment commission. But more contamination -- primarily lead -- has been found in samples from the western part of the site than had been expected. * * *

If the state's requirements can't be met with the additional excavation and sampling, [Curt Jones, senior project manager with Shield Environmental Inc.] said, it may be necessary to use statistical approaches to convince the agency that the site can be used safely. State environmental regulators are supposed to visit the Scribner site next week, Jones said.

The Pines Transfer Station. Two more stories on the IDEM approval of the "Great Lakes Transfer Station, proposed on about five acres north of U.S. 20 and about one-half mile south of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore’s Mount Baldy." The quote is from a story in the Chesterton Tribune. More:
The transfer station would serve as a collection site for trash before the garbage is loaded onto larger trucks for transport to a landfill. Residents in the area who have opposed the station have cited the dangers of increased truck traffic, the existence of Ice Age-era wetlands in the vicinity, the proximity of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, and the potential for prehistoric artifacts on site.

For Pine Township residents in particular, the transfer station represents a step backward in the progress that they have made recovering from groundwater pollution attributed to the Brown Landfill.

For the Porter County Commissioners, one of the main issues has been that County Line Road is not an all-weather road and cannot withstand heavy trash-hauling trucks due to the poor soils. The commissioners have refused to lift the current weight limit on the road, which some have said would be needed in order for garbage trucks to get to the transfer station.

The Munster (NW Indiana) Times has a story headlined "Group to plan appeal of waste transfer station."

Great Lakes Carp. The Chicago Tribune has a story that reports:

Two barriers intended to keep gluttonous Asian carp out of the Great Lakes could be shut down because nobody wants to pay the electric bill.

Members of a House-Senate budget committee decided this week not to pay the roughly $1 million needed to keep the electrical barriers operating in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the last line of defense between Lake Michigan and the carp-infested Illinois River. * * *

Only 50 miles of water and the pair of barriers stand between the lakes and the advancing carp, which took less than a decade to eat their way up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.

If Congress doesn't set aside money for the barriers in another bill, the Army Corps of Engineers is expected to run out of money to keep them operating by May. It then would be up to the State of Illinois to pick up the tab, something state officials say they aren't able to do, either.

"This should be a federal responsibility," said Mike Conlin, director of resource conservation at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. "These barriers are in place to protect all of the Great Lakes, not just the Illinois portion of Lake Michigan."

Asian carp worry biologists who study the Great Lakes because the fish devour up to 40 percent of their body weight each day, mostly by straining out tiny organisms that provide the base of the food chain for popular sport fish such as bass and walleye.

Porter County Wetlands. Vicki Urbanik of the Chesterton Tribune reports today that:
In a 5-3 vote Wednesday, the Porter County Plan Commission rejected plans for The Preserve, a proposed 99-lot subdivision surrounded by wetlands at C.R. 1050N and 50W in Liberty Township.

The decision clearly was a difficult one for some of the plan commission members, who, after holding a one-hour long public hearing, questioned and debated the proposal for nearly two more hours before taking a vote.

The case was reminiscent of the debate that occurred earlier this year over a subdivision planned farther east on 1050N in Jackson Township. One the one hand, the development met and even exceeded the county’s open space requirements and came with the likelihood of sanitary sewer and water, as the county planners favor. But other characteristics of the property ended up outweighing those positives.

The Preserve developers pledged to protect 51 acres of existing wetlands on site and an additional 10 acres of open space, while leaving the remaining 29 acres for the housing.

They also called for educating homeowners on the environmental sensitivity of the land, partnering with a non-profit group to manage the wetlands, and employing “best management practices,” such as the use of vegetative filter strips to slow water and rain barrels to collect water.

This is a long and detailed article that deserves full reading.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 11, 2005 09:59 AM
Posted to Environment | Indiana economic development