City of Waukegan - Position Paper on Waukegan Harbor

The City Council has spoken with one voice on Waukegan Harbor: the City will adhere to the Lakefront Downtown Master Plan.  In April 2004 the City Council rejected a proposal by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) to dispose of PCB contaminated sediments at the Yeoman Creek Landfill, a project then estimated to cost $15 million.[1]  In 2004 the City Council was concerned that real purpose of the project was not to clean the harbor, but to maintain a deep industrial harbor on the lakefront.[2]  On May 7, 2007 the City Council stated the conditions under which the City would contribute towards the $12.6 million local share of a dredging project that had increased to $36 million.[3]  The City Council wants a clean harbor, but not a deep industrial harbor. On August 22, 2007 the U.S. EPA stated that the City Council's concern about its Master Plan was not "relevant" to the cleanup of the harbor.[4]

On September 4, 2007 U.S. EPA's consultant expressed serious concerns that the harbor dredging project,[5] as it was being designed, may not result in meeting U.S. EPA's cleanup objective for the harbor.  The draft Dredge Monitoring and Field Sampling Plan (essentially the preliminary design for the dredge project) released to the City by U.S. EPA on October 10, 2007 expresses a similar concern.  The issue is that while dredging, PCBs will fall out of the dredging bucket and land back on the bottom of the harbor.  This is a very well documented issue with mechanical dredging. There is a very strong likelihood that those "resettled" PCBs will prevent U.S. EPA from achieving their stated cleanup objective for the entire harbor.

In the preliminary design released to the City on October 10, 2007, CH2M Hill, U.S. EPA's design engineer, suggests that, after the dredging has been completed, additional clean sand (up to 2 feet thick) can be placed on top of the "resettled" PCBs in order to dilute their concentration and thus achieve the cleanup objective. "Armoring" the bottom to prevent big ship prop wash from disturbing or mobilizing these residual PCBs has also been suggested as a possible solution.  These both sound a lot like placing a cover over, or capping, the PCBs.

Particularly striking in the just released preliminary design is that the project, as currently designed, is just barely capable of meeting the cleanup objective for the harbor. U.S. EPA's design engineer used mathematical calculations and not actual field evidence to show how, based on the current data, it is theoretically possible to just barely meet the cleanup objective, provided everything goes exactly as planned and predicted.  There is virtually no margin for error or allowance for a change in conditions once the dredging gets underway.  If PCB concentrations are higher than anticipated, the thickness of residual PCBs is more than predicted, subsequent big ship prop wash mixes the bottom sediments after dredging in an unpredicted way, or any other factor somehow does not go our way, there is a very good chance that the harbor will not meet U.S. EPA's cleanup objective.

Lastly, this is not a new issue. The City has repeatedly expressed these very concerns to the U.S. EPA.  The City's concerns are now documented by U.S. EPA's design engineer in the preliminary design.

Not meeting the cleanup objective means the harbor would not be "delisted" as an Area of Concern.  The only reason the City is participating in the $39 million + dredging project is to "delist" the harbor.  This would be the worst possible outcome for the City.  After spending nearly $14 million of the taxpayers' money the City would be left with a deep industrial harbor that remains listed as an Area of Concern.

Since 2004, when the City Council rejected the Yeoman Creek Landfill option, the City has expressed concern that the dredging project is too expensive and may not achieve U.S. EPA's cleanup objective.  The City suggested an alternative approach: place an engineered cap over the contaminated sediments on the bottom of the harbor.[6]  Placing an engineered cap over the sediments would be much less expensive than U.S. EPA latest $39 million "estimated" cost of dredging the harbor.  The City has provided U.S. EPA with hundreds of examples of sites where capping has worked and been approved by federal and state environmental agencies[7] (including on the Fox River in Wisconsin).[8]  The Director of the Illinois EPA agrees that "capping is an accepted practice" for dealing with PCB contaminated sediments.[9]

Just recently the National Research Council, in a study funded by the U.S. EPA and the National Academy of Sciences, concluded:

At sites where structures, debris, hardpan, or bedrock limit dredging effectiveness, the desired cleanup levels, if based on the attainment of specified chemical concentrations, are unlikely to be met by dredging alone.[10] (Emphasis Added)

Concern was also raised by a Technical Review Committee that included the Illinois EPA about whether the Waukegan Harbor dredging project would achieve U.S. EPA's cleanup objective for PCBs in the sediments.[11]

Now U.S. EPA is suggesting that after the PCBs are ineffectively dredged, they should be capped.  Why bother with dredging the PCBs in the first place if they will have to be capped?  As U.S. EPA explains, an engineered cap is dismissed from further consideration not for scientific, but for political and bureaucratic reasons:

In situ capping is not a viable option for the federally authorized navigation channel segments of Waukegan Harbor for two critical reasons. First, much of the federal navigation channel is currently shallower than the authorized operations and maintenance depth of -18 feet referenced to Lake Michigan Low Water Datum (LWD). Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer would issue a permit to allow placement of capping material within a federally authorized navigation channel. Second, due to commercial navigation within the harbor, the sediments within and adjacent to the federal navigation channel are subject to extreme forces from the engines and bow thrusters of the commercial vessels. A cap placed within the federal navigation channel would need to include significant armoring of the bottom and side slope areas in order to prevent disruption of the cap material.[12]

Maybe there are political reasons why consensus cannot be achieved to use the most reliable and cost effective technology.  Maybe the ACOE will object to the placement of an "obstruction" (an engineered cap) in the harbor.  The ACOE may very well object to an engineered cap even though, after more than twenty three years of failed attempts at cleanup,[13] it has warned that Waukegan Harbor may be deauthorized as a federal harbor[14] and concluded that status of Waukegan Harbor will most likely become recreational.[15]  It is understandable that the few remaining industries on the lakefront would object to an engineered cap that would interfere with large ships using the harbor, even if an engineered cap is more reliable and cost effective than dredging (or dredging alone).  It is understandable that the City of Waukegan wants to implement a Master Plan that will move the harbor from the twentieth into a twenty first century world economy.  It is also understandable why the City is unwilling to participate in a $39 million + project that U.S. EPA's own consultant has serious reservations will achieve U.S. EPA's cleanup objective - particularly when the only justification for the most expensive, least reliable dredging option is that it is necessary to maintain a deep industrial harbor that is inconsistent with the City's Master Plan.  Perhaps this political gridlock over the cleanup of the harbor is inevitable until an accommodation is reached between two competing views of the future of the lakefront.

 However, U.S. EPA should not weigh in what is essentially a political and local land use issue.  The job of U.S. EPA is to focus the public on the best scientific solutions to environmental problems.  U.S. EPA should be candid and tell the public that, despite political and bureaucratic constraints, capping is a more reliable and cost effective solution than dredging.  Whether an engineered cap is a viable solution for the harbor is a scientific, not a political, question.  The political debate concerning how to best solve the problem of PCB contaminated sediments in the harbor should take place with accurate and unbiased scientific information.  Maintaining the harbor as a deep industrial harbor should not be a predetermined outcome that censors honest and open scientific discussion.  Perhaps unwittingly, this is exactly what U.S. EPA has allowed to happen.  The citizenry deserves unbiased scientific information so that they, through their elected representatives, may make informed policy decisions.  Let the public decide whether it makes sense to spend $39 million + on a remedy that may not work or whether a more cost effective and reliable alternative, an engineered cap, should be implemented.  Our elected representatives may need to cut through bureaucratic red tape in order to implement the most sensible remedy for Waukegan Harbor.