It didn\u2019t catch fire like Cleveland\u2019s infamously polluted Cuyahoga River did in 1969, said Emily Stork, regional ecologist from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, who was leading a recent tour for educators in the Calumet Region.<\/p>\n
But, she added, it has suffered some of the worst industrial abuses in the Great Lakes basin.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very messed-up river,\u201d Stork said.<\/p>\n
The Grand Calumet River\u2019s 13 miles meander across northwest Indiana, flanked by old and new industries,<\/strong> such as steel mills, meatpackers and oil refineries, which dumped a noxious mix of heavy metals and chemicals into its waters before federal regulations. Over the last 15 years, more than two-thirds of the waterway has been slowly brought back to life through concerted efforts to remove or cap toxic muck.<\/p>\n The Great Lakes Legacy Act<\/a> \u2014 which aims to address areas of concern in the basin where longtime industrial contamination has caused environmental degradation \u2014 has funded 34 remediation projects across the region since 2004, removing or capping almost 7 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment. Along 4.5 miles of the Grand Calumet River alone, the program has cleaned up some 2 million cubic yards, enough to fill up more than 600 Olympic-size swimming pools.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s still a long way to go.<\/p>\n Flowing west from Miller Beach in Gary, the river splits between Hammond and East Chicago \u2014 most of its waters heading north to drain into Lake Michigan through the Indiana Harbor, the rest flowing toward Illinois. On the Far South Side of Chicago, the Grand Calumet becomes the junction where the Calumet River and the Little Calumet meet, the latter of which eventually flows into the Cal-Sag Channel.<\/p>\n Joel Perez, project director for the southern Lake Michigan rim at The Nature Conservancy, who was part of the Calumet tour, grew up nearby and recalls the overgrown brush and the auto tires that used to litter the marsh.<\/p>\n \u201cThat really sucked \u2014 living next to this body of water (that) I couldn\u2019t use,\u201d Perez said.<\/p>\n Despite advances in recent years, the waterway remains a work in progress; the remediated sites still need care and maintenance, and almost 4 miles of the river have yet to be addressed. A project for the second half of the east branch is in the design phase and will include closing the Gary Sanitary District\u2019s Ralston Street Lagoon after a cleanup and containment plan that began 14 years ago. The U.S. EPA estimates<\/a> all necessary actions will be completed between 2027 and 2030, and that the waterway will be delisted as an area of concern possibly by 2031.<\/p>\n Even as the federal agency faces budget cuts \u2014 with the Trump administration proposing to slash it by 55% for the next fiscal year \u2014 the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which houses the legacy act, has not been targeted for elimination. The initiative also tends to garner bipartisan support in Congress; the U.S. Senate passed a bill<\/a> in December to reauthorize it for five more years and eventually increase its funding from $475 million to $500 million.<\/p>\n Toxic sediment<\/p>\n The pollutants that were pumped into the river, unregulated for decades, pose the biggest threat to its ecosystem. But so does the accumulation of sediment, which can significantly reshape physical habitats and the life they sustain, Stork said. For instance, Roxana Marsh used to be a pond, but industrial sediment made it shallow.<\/p>\n Tall, dense invasive common reeds were then able to move in and stifle native plants. It made the area inaccessible to migratory birds that had long used the place as a rest stop.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if birds wanted to use it, they would have gotten sick,\u201d Stork said.<\/p>\n So much sediment had accumulated that, had it been removed in its entirety, that section of the river would have been an unnatural 15 feet deep \u2014 and wouldn\u2019t have been able to support life at the bottom, according to Stork.<\/p>\n \u201cMan, this must\u2019ve been something before industry came in,\u201d said Dan Martin, a Chicago schoolteacher, as he looked out onto the marsh during the recent tour.<\/p>\n That beauty is slowly coming back. At the marsh, remediation returned 19 acres of habitat to birds such as black-crowned night herons<\/a>, bald eagles and sandpipers. Most visitors to this and other restored portions of the river are birdwatchers who are familiar with the area\u2019s salience in the region\u2019s migratory corridor.<\/p>\n Driving east from the marsh, Stork passed a stretch of the river not yet remediated, between Indianapolis Boulevard and Kennedy Avenue. Nearby, a former DuPont chemical plant is undergoing a U.S. EPA-required $26.6 million cleanup<\/a> by current and former owners. Also nearby, a USS Lead Superfund site<\/a>, where lead and arsenic are the main contaminants, is being cleaned up.<\/p>\n On another 5 miles along the eastern stretch of the river, the U.S. EPA enforced a cleanup project in the 2000s that had U.S. Steel remove almost 800,000 cubic yards of sediment next to the corporation\u2019s Gary Works facility.<\/p>\n Some industries and local companies proactively participate in projects like the remediation along segments of the river, each of which requires collaboration among several agencies and stakeholders and can be yearslong, multimillion-dollar endeavors.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to take it one bite at a time,\u201d Stork said.<\/p>\n Typically, the U.S. EPA supplies two-thirds of the funding for legacy act projects, but these also need support from local sponsors such as nonprofits including The Nature Conservancy or state agencies such as the Department of Natural Resources. In northwest Indiana, at least $191 million in federal and nonfederal funds have been spent to date for cleanup of the Grand Calumet over the past 15 years.<\/p>\n Black-eyed Susans sprout from where power line poles meet the ground, replacing artificial turf that the Northern Indiana Public Service Co. had previously installed.<\/p>\n \u201cIt looks like a bad haircut,\u201d Stork laughed.<\/p>\n The utility company is working with project partners to bring the area back to life. For instance, it collaborated with the U.S. EPA and state agencies to remove 14,600 cubic yards of contaminated sediment and cap another 30,000 cubic yards from a 0.4-mile stretch of the river that ends at the Illinois state line. Invasive vegetation was also removed and replaced by native shrubs and trees.<\/p>\n The first remediated section on the river\u2019s east branch, the Seidner Dune and Swale Nature Preserve<\/a> in Hammond, is managed by the Shirley Heinze Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy after a multiagency acquisition and restoration project.<\/p>\n \u201cStepping here is like stepping back in time,\u201d Stork said.<\/p>\n The landforms at the preserve are remnants of glaciation<\/a>. The dunes were once beach ridges from when Lake Michigan\u2019s meltwater reached farther inland.<\/p>\n Dune and swale systems are globally rare; this topographic variation \u2014 upland in the dunes, lowland in the swales \u2014 combines with the region\u2019s unique confluence of biomes \u2014 particularly oak savanna, prairie and wetlands \u2014 to pack a lot of biodiversity into the preserve\u2019s 42 acres. According to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources<\/a>, almost 300 species of plants have been identified on-site, including several rare ones with strict habitat requirements.<\/p>\n A wild turkey flapped its wings, taking off as the group of educators walked a 1-mile loop trail that once was a railroad bed. A wildfire blew into the preserve in March, Stork said, killing woody invasives, scorching shrubs and clearing the way for wildflowers to bloom.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really opened this up,\u201d said Alexis Dalton, conservationist and manager of natural areas at the Lake County Parks and Recreation Department in Indiana.<\/p>\n Another threat<\/p>\n Vibrant wildflowers dotted the landscape, hues of violet, lilac and indigo dominating the view. They were verbena, blazing stars and purple loosestrife.<\/p>\n Stork walked into the tall grasses and rooted out one of the latter.<\/p>\n \u201cI just did remarkably well there,\u201d Stork said with a laugh. Being a perennial plant, the deep roots of the purple loosestrife normally complicate its removal.<\/p>\n A mechanical hum grew louder toward the western end of the property, where a Resco Products refractory plant stands in stark contrast to the surrounding wetlands.<\/p>\n Industry, however, is not the only threat to these ecosystems along the Grand Calumet River; so are invasive species such as the purple loosestrife. A single one of these plants can produce 1 million to 3 million seeds each year, which can stay in the riverbank without germinating for up to two decades.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re never going to run out of it,\u201d Stork said.<\/p>\n The same has been said of the invasive common reed along the Grand Calumet system. Scientists<\/a> believe it originated in Eurasia and was accidentally introduced to North America in the late 18th or early 19th century via ship ballast water, establishing itself along the Atlantic Coast and spreading across the rest of the continent in the 20th century. Nowadays, it is the most common type of reed in North America, and, in the Midwest, it has displaced native reeds from wetland habitats near roadsides and waterways with heavy human traffic.<\/p>\n The reeds once blocked the view of the Grand Calumet from the dune and swale, but on the southern side of that section of the river, most have been removed. Yet, across the water, a seemingly impenetrable wall of the invasive plants sways in the wind, several feet tall.<\/p>\n Even after remediation, the consequences of human activity make the area a priority for restoration and conservation work.<\/p>\n \u201cThe project never ends,\u201d said Jessica Fernandez, crew lead at The Nature Conservancy.<\/p>\n For instance, at Roxana Marsh, project partners have now turned their efforts toward improving accessibility for the general public, given that the area is still somewhat tucked away.<\/p>\n The recent immersive tour of the area was another effort between the conservancy, the state and the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant<\/a> to share the region\u2019s recovery and success story with educators and equip them to teach their students about it.<\/p>\n The ecosystem\u2019s substantial improvements should be celebrated, Stork added.<\/p>\n \u201cFor these communities to have this much natural habitat, with this now clean river, is a very big upgrade,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s in their backyard and they don\u2019t know that (restoration) happened.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ctc-l-calumet-restoration-02_232061534.jpg\")
People tour Roxana Marsh, a major restoration site along the Grand Calumet River, on July 31, 2025, in Hammond. (Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ctc-l-calumet-restoration-03_232061476.jpg\")
An industrial building sits across from Roxana Marsh, a major restoration site along the Grand Calumet River, on July 31, 2025 in Hammond. The Nature Conservancy of Indiana, Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Nature Preserves and Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant hosted an educators workshop on the transformation of polluted industrial landscapes into thriving ecosystems. (Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ctc-l-calumet-restoration-13_232061526.jpg\")
An industrial facility operates just outside the Seidner Dune and Swale, a major restoration site along the Grand Calumet River in Hammond on July 31, 2025. The Nature Conservancy of Indiana, Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Nature Preserves, and Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant hosted an educators workshop on the transformation of polluted industrial landscapes into thriving ecosystems. (Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ctc-l-calumet-restoration-27_232061488.jpg\")
An aerial view shows Seidner Dune and Swale, a major restoration site along the Grand Calumet River in Hammond on July 31, 2025. (Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune)
\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ctc-l-calumet-restoration-19_232061506.jpg\")
A goldfinch sits along the water inside Seidner Dune and Swale, a major restoration site along the Grand Calumet River in Hammond on July 31, 2025. (Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"Purple](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ctc-l-calumet-restoration-10_232061510.jpg\")
Purple loosestrife, an invasive species, grows in the Seidner Dune and Swale, a major restoration site along the Grand Calumet River, on July 31, 2025, in Hammond. (Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"Visitors](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ctc-l-calumet-restoration-09_232061528.jpg\")
Visitors tour Seidner Dune and Swale, a major restoration site along the Grand Calumet River in Hammond on July 31, 2025. (Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n