East Lake Metals (Hammond, Indiana)

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From 1937 through 1983,when it was closed, Federated Metals Corporation (FMC) operated a 36-acre smelting, refining, recovery and recycling facility. In 1985, FMC sold the smelter manufacturing facilities that comprised a 17-acre portion of the facility to HBR Partnership. Subsequently, other businesses, including Northern Indiana Metals and Whiting Metals purchased the 17-acre parcel and continued to conduct smelting operations off and on until 2020.

In 1992, FMC and its parent corporation, American Smelting and Refining (AMRACO), entered into a federal consent decree to settle an EPA lawsuit alleging RCRA hazardous waste violations, and agreed to perform RCRA Corrective Action across the entire 36-acre smelter property, not just the 19 acres that FMC still owned. The Corrective Action involved consolidating slag dredged from adjacent Lake George with contaminated soils excavated from facility production areas, and non-hazardous baghouse demolition debris into an existing on-site landfill on the property. The landfill included a “phyto-cap” feature designed to use plants and trees to reduce landfill contaminants from leaching into the groundwater.

In 2005, before the corrective action work was completed, ASARCO declared bankruptcy and abandoned the FMC facility. Four years later, in 2009, a bankruptcy settlement agreement established a Trust that took title to the 10-acre landfill and 9-acre area undergoing Corrective Action. The Trust completed the landfill cover, installed additional groundwater monitoring wells, and conducted several rounds of on-site and off-site groundwater sampling to confirm that the landfill cap was preventing groundwater contamination

www.eastlakemetals.com/