PINES
People In Need of Environmental Safety
News Articles
News-Dispatch (Michigan City, IN)
February 5, 2010
Higher levels of radiation in Pines
Alicia Ebaugh
Staff Writer
PINES - Residents here may be exposed to higher than normal levels of radiation because of coal ash spread around the town, a study of radioactive materials in the area has found.
News-Dispatch (Michigan City, IN)
February 5, 2010
At least 3 seeps found in Yard 520 landfill
Alicia Ebaugh
Staff Writer
PINES - At least three seeps, or openings in the cap covering the former Yard 520 landfill, have been recorded by federal and state environmental officials. The seeps allow water and coal ash from underneath the caps to escape, letting contamination out with them, said Paul Kysel, vice president of People in Need of Environmental Safety.
News-Dispatch (Michigan City, IN)
December 21, 2009
Non-profit group upset scientists still not paid
Disagreement involves PINES, utility, contractor
Alicia Ebaugh
Staff Writer
PINES - Scientists on behalf of Pines residents who examined groundwater pollution caused by coal ash in the town are still owed more than $86,000 for their work, but the companies who would be responsible for the bill say they won't pay it. Northern Indiana Public Service Co., Brown Inc. and its subsidiaries who are paying for the investigation into the pollution at the Pines' Superfund Alternative site say the work was done outside of the agreement it signed with People in Need of Environmental Safety, a resident group formed to track the groundwater issue.
News-Dispatch (Michigan City, IN)
December 20, 2009
'It's still in the ground'
Pines residents still not certain of coal ash effects
Alicia Ebaugh
Staff Writer
The Pines groundwater plume, as it's called by the Environmental Protection Agency, was designated a Superfund Alternative site in 2003. The contaminated groundwater is thought to be creeping north from the town toward Lake Michigan. Now Pines' future - and maybe even that of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore - rests on the outcome of an investigation into the risks the residents and land face from coal ash pollution and what can be done to correct them.
CIRCLE OF BLUE WATER NEWS
July 20, 2009
Coal Ash: Town's Toxic Water Embodies National Challenge
Text, Video, and Images by Aaron Jaffe, Map by Yiruo Zhao, Circle of Blue
TOWN OF PINES, Ind. - Peggy Richardson was still in high school nearly 40 years ago when trucks began dumping the ash from a nearby coal-fired power plant in this working-class community 50 miles east of Chicago. Like the other 800 residents, she and her family never considered whether there was a risk when a heap of ash - known here as Yard 520 - steadily grew into a mountain of coal wastes a half-mile long and four stories tall, higher than any building in town.
The Virginian-Pilot (Chesapeake, Virginia)
October 17, 2008
Indiana town to Chesapeake: Fly-ash battle will not be easy
Robert McCabe, The Virginian-Pilot
Jan Nona watched and carefully recorded what happened to her hometown when fly ash contaminated the water supply. Dangerous things came out of the wells. Regulators arrived. Legal fights began. Eight years passed. And the fly ash remains.
That is why she thinks she knows what will happen in Chesapeake, even though she lives about 850 miles away and has only driven through Virginia once.
News-Dispatch (Michigan City, IN)
May 5, 2006
More water testing planned for
Pines
Deborah Sederberg, The News-Dispatch
Environmental officials hope to begin sampling
ground water, soil and sediment in Pines - part of an ongoing remedial
investigation surrounding contaminated water. During a Thursday meeting at the Michigan City Public
Library, Tim Drexler of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Chicago
office, explained the purpose and the process of the study. It likely will begin this month in an
area bounded on the north by the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (some testing
will be completed in the Lakeshore), on the south in an area just below Old
Chicago road, on the west by Brown Road on the West and County Line Road on the
East.
NIPSCO responds to the News Dispatch story on Pines Elementary School
January 6, 2006
The story, written by Deborah Sederberg, asserts: "Groundwater at the school, as it is in much of the Town of Pines, has been contaminated with some elements of fly ash, deposited years ago in a nearby landfill." This statement is erroneous.
the November 14 story in the News Dispatch is inaccurate in that the story incorrectly portrays groundwater constituent levels at the Pine Elementary School as being caused by past disposal operations, when in fact the USGS study concluded the levels were naturally occurring.
News-Dispatch (Michigan City, IN)
November 14, 2005
If they choose to build new
schools
Deborah Sederberg The News-Dispatch.
For several years, the board of Michigan City Area
Schools has been wrestling with water concerns at Pine Elementary School. Groundwater at the school, as it is in
much of the town of Pines, has been contaminated with some elements of fly ash,
deposited years ago in a nearby landfill.
For about a year, the Environmental Protection Agency provided bottled
water to the school, something the school corporation does now. It would cost at least $750,000 -
perhaps as much as $1 million - to bring city water to Pine Elementary School.
News-Dispatch (Michigan City, IN)
August 30, 2004
Deborah Sederberg The News-Dispatch
Fate of water issue depends on future of current
building. Whether city water will
be at Pine Elementary School depends on whether it will remain open at its
present site. Last spring, the
Michigan City Area Schools' elementary-facilities committee recommended the
school be rebuilt, either at its present site, 1594 N. Porter County Road 500
East, or elsewhere. Pine is the
only MCAS building in Porter County. Students living in a portion of Pine
Township in Porter County attend the Michigan City school, while those in other
parts of the township attend school in the Duneland district. Since last April, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency has been providing bottled drinking water to
the school, just as it has to the occupants of several area homes because some
wells are contaminated with various substances, including boron, manganese, arsenic
and lead.
News-Dispatch (Michigan City, IN)
April 7, 2004
Agencies' views differ about water quality at Pine School
Jason Miller The News-Dispatch
The decision to provide students at Pine
Elementary School with bottled water late last week was reached despite
differences between two federal agencies about how much contamination is deemed
acceptable for children. Tim
Drexler, remedial projects manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, said Tuesday the EPA decided to provide the school with bottled water
after molybdenum readings in ground water at the school registered .8 of a
point above EPA safety standards.
Current EPA standards for children say 10.8 parts per billion of the
chemical are too much for children to be exposed to. The agency's safety level
is 10 parts per billion. Molybdenum poisoning in humans can cause cancer,
reproductive and developmental problems and nervous disorders.
News-Dispatch (Michigan City, IN)
April 3, 2004
EPA to provide bottled water to
school
Dave Hawk and Jason Miller, The News-Dispatch
PINE TOWNSHIP - The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency said Friday it will begin providing bottled drinking water to Pine
Elementary School. The measure is
a precaution because tests showed an elevated level of a metallic substance in
the school's well water, said Fred LaBorn, Michigan City Area Schools interim
superintendent. LaBorn said he was
told Ken Theisen, EPA on-scene coordinator in The Pines, went to the school
Friday morning to notify school officials that beginning Monday the EPA would
furnish bottled water. The EPA
will bear the cost for one year, LaBorn said he was told. He wasn't sure what
happens after that, but it's possible the school system may have to cover the
cost of continued bottled water.
News-Dispatch, The (Michigan City, IN)
February 19, 2004
Jason Miller The News-Dispatch
THE PINES -- When Brown Inc. officially closed the
north section of its Yard 520 Landfill here last year, the move didn't stop
contaminants from leaching into the town's groundwater. So when the company decided to close
the landfill's southern section by the same method, environmental activists in
the town objected. On Monday,
however, People In Need of Environmental Safety (P.I.N.E.S.) gave up its fight
to change the closure method because, representatives say, it could no longer
wage an uphill battle. "This
has just gone on and on and we can't do it anymore," P.I.N.E.S. member Jan
Nona said Wednesday. "It's another little merry-go-round for us."
News-Dispatch (Michigan City, IN)
November 20, 2003
Pines group seeks help from
Kernan
THE PINES -- People in Need of Environmental
Safety, a group concerned with water quality in The Pines, has sent a letter to
Gov. Joe Kernan asking him for help in closing the Yard 520 Landfill in a way
that will prevent contamination from escaping the site. Jan Nona, a member of P.I.N.E.S., said
the present closure plan that's soon to be approved by the Indiana Department
of Environmental Management does not require adequate long-term monitoring, or
a slurry wall to stop the flow of contamination, or require cleanup of already
contaminated groundwater and surface water. Nona said at stake is the environmental health not only of The
Pines, but also of Beverly Shores, the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and
Lake Michigan.
News-Dispatch (Michigan City, IN)
February 7, 2002
State wants EPA help with Pines
cleanup
Jeff Tucker
The discovery of nine contaminated wells in The
Pines has prompted state regulators to ask for federal assistance in a
long-term cleanup of the town's ground water. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management has
requested the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency add The Pines to its
National Priorities List for possible remediation though the federal Superfund
program.
News-Dispatch (Michigan City, IN)
December 1, 2000
Pines wells fail federal
standards
Kathy Ceperich
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management
has confirmed that four wells belonging to residents in The Pines do not meet
federal drinking-water standards.
The residents involved have been notified, said Mark Jaworski, IDEM site
investigation project manager. The wells are within a few blocks and are east
of Indiana 520. Three of the wells
tested high for Volatile Organic Compounds (V.O.C.s) and one tested positive
for arsenic.
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