FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                         ENR
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1996                        (202) 616-2765
                                               TDD (202) 514-1888
                                           U.S. EPA (312)353-6218
                                 U.S. FWS (812) 334-4261 ext. 203
LANDMARK SETTLEMENT TO SPUR GRAND CALUMET RIVER CLEANUP

HAMMOND, IN -- Three northwest Indiana companies will spend $5.55 million to help clean up the heavily polluted West Branch of the Grand Calumet River in Northwest Indiana, under an agreement announced today by the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the State of Indiana. This innovative settlement will create a trust fund to pay for dredging of severely contaminated sediments in the river and restoring damaged wetlands and wildlife habitat along its banks.

The agreement settles claims that Cerestar USA, Inc. (Formerly American Maize Products co.), the Keil Chemical Division of Ferro Corporation, and Lever Brothers discharged huge amounts of untreated or inadequately treated industrial pollutants into local sewage treatment plants, killing the bacteria used to treat sewage and causing untreated sewage to contaminate the River.

Under the settlement lodged today in U.S. District Court in Hammond, Indiana, the three companies will pay $4.7 million into the Grand Calumet River Restoration Fund and $600,000 in civil penalties to the U.S. Treasury, and take steps to ensure they comply with the Clean Water Act.

A fourth company, Tenneco Packaging, will pay a $250,000 civil penalty to resolve claims that its waste water discharges led to contamination of the nearby Little Calumet River. It also has agreed to undertake an extensive program to reduce water usage and waste water discharge at its plant in Griffith, Indiana.

"Our environmental laws, when vigorously enforced, can produce significant results," said Lois Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Environment and Natural Resources Division. " Look at the Potomac River in our nation's capitol or the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. That is what this settlement is about: repairing the damage caused by a century's worth of unregulated and illegal discharges."

"This settlement should be a wake-up call to companies whose actions result in pollution of our nation's waterways" says Steve Herman, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. "These innovative agreements place the financial responsibility for the clean-up of the Grand Calumet River squarely on the shoulders of the companies that contaminated these rivers and their banks. They also ensure future compliance with the Clean Water Act."

"The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, on behalf of the Department of the Interior, is pleased to be a part of this settlement," said John Blankenship, the Service's Assistant Regional Director for Ecological Services. "This agreement will play an important role in reclaiming resources lost for decades to pollution."

The Grand Calumet River is one of the country's most polluted rivers. Contaminated sewage sediments in some parts of the River reach a depth of sixteen feet and the river appears to "boil" due to methane bubbles caused by rotting material on the river bottom.

This settlement, which follows several others reached with corporations along the East branch of the Grand Calumet, is the result of years of cooperation between federal and state officials. The Trust Fund will be administered by the State of Indiana in consultation with the U.S. EPA and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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