The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is trying to get access to a Superfund landfill west of Gary/Chicago International Airport to see just how bad the pollutants in the area are.
According to court documents filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Hammond, the Gary Development Landfill, at 479 N. Cline Ave., is separated into three parcels, and only one of the owners has given permission for the government to inspect the land.
The other two — Gary resident and activist Jim Nowacki, who bought it at a tax sale, and Steven Nanini, of Arizona, a relative of the landfill’s former owner — have not given permission, despite repeated attempts by government officials.
Nowacki, however, said that he gave authorities permission via email to inspect the landfill but they preferred a court order.
“There’s no question that I gave them as much permission as I could,” Nowacki said. “I have no problem giving them permission.”
According to the filing, the landfill was operated from 1975 to 1989 and took in a number of hazardous items, including asbestos and tar sludge. Numerous tests by the the EPA, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the Indiana State Board of Health during the past decade all found issues with the site, including levels of arsenic, lead, mercury and other hazardous elements at three times the levels of other nearby sites.
The agencies also found that the landfill had been discharging untreated surface drainage into the Grand Calumet River without a permit and that the landfill was built without a liner to protect the ground under it.
“I conclude that there is reason to believe that a release of hazardous substances has occurred at the Gary Development Landfill site and that releases of hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants may continue to occur …,” Leslie Blake, remedial project manager for the EPA, said in an EPA document.
The site was added to the EPA’s National Priority List of Superfund, a list of the abandoned properties in the country that are in most need of environmental rehabilitation, in 2012. The next step is for the EPA to investigate the site to determine how best to clean it up.
Blake said in her report that it should take about two years once given access to the site to finish the EPA’s study determine how it might be treated.
Other documents have been filed in the case, but none were open to the public as of Thursday afternoon.