Still Waiting Approval on Dredging Permits

Permits to dredge the Burns Small Boat Harbor and entrance channel are still waiting approval from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and as well the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM). The disposal location into the littoral drift or beach also still has yet to be determined.

We will keep you apprised as soon as the permits are approved. A recent article in the Post Tribune indicated that stimulus funding has been appropriated. According to DNR, the earliest any dredging can begin is in July when the fish spawning season ends.

The Town Council has expressed an interest in initiating efforts to install a sand bypass system around the Port of Indiana that would continuously or seasonally pump sand onto the beach from the NIPSCO intake. Previous efforts to pursue this have indicated that this would be an expensive undertaking if it just benefitted Ogden Dunes. However, with the establishment of the Portage Lakefront Site, combined with other factors, more Indiana residents would now benefit from the establishment of such a system.

• If you added up the dollars that need to be spent on dredging yearly in Michigan City, the Port of Indiana and the Burns Small Boat Harbor, you’d realize that a bypass system is not an unreasonable cost.
• In Porter County, a bypass system around the Port of Indiana would save dollars being spent dredging the NIPSCO intake and the Port of Indiana. These are costs that are passed on to all citizens in the coastal area, either through federal taxes or through their NIPSCO bills.
• Having a seriously eroded beach impacts usage of the Ogden Dunes beach as well as the Portage Lakefront site. When the beach is eroded, walkers have difficulty walking the beach all the way to Lake Street in Gary if they chose to do so.
• Sand starvation and erosion affects structures at the Portage Lakefront site taxpayers paid to enjoy. Portage and the National Park will constantly need to monitor and protect the hardened structures on the beach at the Portage Lakefront site.
• There is a cost to the public when homes threaten to fall in – or actually fall in – Lake Michigan. Property values are affected. Beach usage is affected. Taxable property is lost making fewer people bear the tax burden.
• There is also a cost to biodiversity when unnatural material is placed on the beach that can affect ecosystem and dune-building dynamics.
• Finally, there is also a cost associated with placing potentially contaminated sediment on our beaches. That cost is unmeasurable – the cost to human health.

The Town Council is urged by the ODEAB to band with other lakefront communities to convince the Army Corp of Engineers to initiate a study on such a system. A similar study of a bypass system around the Michigan City port area that would benefit Mt. Baldy and Beverly Shores may be released this fall.