IDEM head says NWI environment’s improving

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Easterly

Updated: March 4, 2012 8:16AM

Northwest Indiana has seen environmental improvements in the past 25 years under the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, but the region still needs work, Commissioner Easterly said Thursday morning.

Easterly spoke to the Environmental Management Policy Committee of the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, giving his yearly update on what IDEM has done and its plans for the coming year.

One improvement will become official Monday, he said. The federal government is set to approve the region for meeting federal standards on fine particle matter, which comes from vehicles and other burning facilities.

Easterly pointed out that Northwest Indiana’s air now falls below the state standards on 10 pollutants. The state has spent about $200 million so far on dredging the Grand Calumet River, which has the distinction of being the only place in the Great Lakes to fail in all the areas it could for its beneficial use, Easterly said. Other pollutants have gone down, such PCBs and this is the only area in the state to be under the approved levels for sulfur dioxide, he told the council. The region is also below standards on ozone levels.

However, the region still has several problems. Although a large part of the Grand Calumet is in the process of being dredged or has plans for dredging, the state has to come up with the money to finish the project, Easterly said.

“It’s going to be a challenge how we fund the rest of it,” he said, noting that the fund the state has previously used to pay for dredging is almost tapped out.

The region also continues to have beaches that score low in the safety of the water for swimming. Easterly said the worst beach last year was approved for swimming just 51.4 percent of the time. And although the vast majority of communities that used to record combined sewer overflows have signed a consent decree with either the state or federal governments, among the three that have yet to do so are Hammond and Gary. Easterly said it appeared Gary would be the last one.

Gary has had recent problems with its Gary Sanitary District, including federal criminal charges against its former private operator United Water and two of its employees, who are accused of using improper procedures during testing for E. coli. EMPC member Lee Botts questioned Easterly if he knew why the case was taking so long to play out and if the public would hear anymore from the Department of Justice.

Easterly said he no knowledge of the case.

Another problem for Northwest Indiana, Easterly said, is that although Lake County meets the standards for ozone levels, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decided that because a location nearby in Illinois failed, then the entire area, including Northwest Indiana, would fail, too.

“It’s very, very frustrating for us,” Easterly said.