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BY STEVE ZABROSKI
Times Correspondent | Monday, November 20, 2006 | (No comments posted.)
EAST CHICAGO | Neighbors are blaming nonstop construction activity at a former refinery site on the city's north side for the condition of nearby roads.
More than 200 trucks each day -- some days many more -- bring loads of clay to the old Sinclair Oil property on Indianapolis Boulevard, where crews are building the 20-foot-high walls to eventually hold contaminated sediments from the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal.
But some of the clay is staying behind on Riley Road when the truckers get on Cline Avenue to return to Portage for more clay, residents claim.
"Constituents call me a lot about stuff on Riley Road," said City Councilman Robert Garcia, D-5th, a board member with the East Chicago Waterway Management District, local sponsor of the dredging and disposal project.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to dredge some 4.6 million cubic yards of sediment -- considered among the most toxic in the Great Lakes ecosystem -- from the harbor and canal over the next 30 years and permanently store the material at the 275-acre site.
"Riley Road is swept almost continuously," said Jeff Webb, on-site manager with Dyer Construction, the Army Corps' lead contractor for construction of the confined disposal facility.
An average of 225 truckloads of clay has been brought to the site each day since the second phase of wall construction began in August, Webb said, and on some days the number is close to 400 loads.
Though there have been some mechanical problems with the street sweeper dedicated to keeping material from the site off local roads, the unit has now been repaired and is in operation from 6:30 a.m. until the last truck leaves the property some 10 or 11 hours later, Webb said.
Joanne Milo, Army Corps project manager, said she was very happy with the progress of building the confined disposal facility walls, which is scheduled to continue until October, but she wants neighbors to be satisfied.
"We want to hear when there's a complaint right away," Milo said. "We want the community to be happy with what they're seeing."
Milo said scientists will be out on the harbor and canal beginning this week, taking samples to determine the extent of contamination from carcinogenic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which will be stored in a special section of the confined disposal facility.
A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study examining the added risks to humans and wildlife from the $130 million project is scheduled for public release next month.
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