People who want cleaner streams in northeastern Lake County and an adjoining part of Porter County have a new resource.
A plan to reduce water pollution in the Deep River watershed — a 180-square-mile area including Lake Station, Hobart and parts of Merrillville, Crown Point and Portage — was approved Thursday by the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission’s executive board.
The 302-page plan includes a compendium of environmental information, along with proposals for improving water quality in the streams — including Deep River, Turkey Creek and Willow Creek — that carry rainwater to Burns Waterway and eventually Lake Michigan
“It tells where you can get the most bang for your buck,” said Kathy Luther, director of NIRPC’s environmental programs.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management had asked NIRPC to put the plan together, citing poor water quality in most of the watershed’s streams and tributaries.
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Joe Exl, NIRPC’s water resource planner, said about $267,000 will be available for projects in the watershed, working with county drainage boards, soil conservation districts and municipal stormwater districts.
Projects could include planting trees, grasses and shrubbery to keep farm soil from washing into adjacent ditches and creating drainage ditches that would hold water longer.
The goal is to make all the streams clean enough for fish to thrive in and eventually human recreation.
The work also could help keep silt from continually filling up Hobart’s Lake George, Luther said.
Also Thursday, NIRPC board members watched a five-minute preview of an hour-long documentary, “Shifting Sands: On the Path to Sustainability,” about Northwest Indiana’s dunes region.
Filmmaker Patricia Wisniewski said she had no idea before starting work on the film of the region’s biological diversity, its importance in environmental history and its unique combination of heavy industry and natural areas.
“This region is ground zero for sustainability,” she said. “If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.”
The film premiered Friday on Lakeshore Public Television, WYIN. It will be shown at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. today at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore’s Douglas Center in Gary, and at 2 p.m. Sunday at the national park’s visitor center in Chesterton. Another showing is scheduled for 7 p.m. May 16 at the Porter County Administration Building in Valparaiso, along with further showings on WYIN.
Tim Zorn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.