Cleanup work completes in Waukegan Harbor
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the completion of all cleanup work required to remove Waukegan Harbor from the binational list of Great Lakes Areas of Concern. EPA Regional Administrator Susan Hedman was joined for the announcement at Waukegan Harbor by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk, U.S. Representative Brad Schneider and Mayor Wayne Motley. Waukegan Harbor was one of 43 contaminated sites on the Great Lakes designated as a Great Lakes Area of Concern by the United States and Canada under the 1987 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. "Today is a great day for Waukegan Harbor and for Lake Michigan," Hedman said. "Federal, state and local agencies have now completed all of the work required to remove Waukegan Harbor from the list of Great Lakes Areas of Concern." Since the early 1990s, EPA, the State of Illinois, and parties responsible for contaminating the Area of Concern have spent approximately $150 million to remove or cap PCB-contaminated sediment, to clean up the Outboard Marine Superfund Site and to restore habitat in the Waukegan Harbor Area of Concern. Funding for this work was provided through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, the EPA Superfund program and ...
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