Utility Plans To Clean Up Coal Tar Along Indiana River

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — A northern Indiana utility plans to clean up contamination left by a coal gasification plant that operated more than a century ago.

NIPSCO crews will excavate and remove coal tar residue this fall from the St. Marys River in Fort Wayne. That contamination was generated by a plant that operated in the late 1800s and early 1900s and used coal to make a gas used for lighting in Fort Wayne.

The News-Sentinel reports NIPSCO plans to ask Fort Wayne's parks board for permission to use the grounds of a recreated 19th century military fort as a site for temporarily treating the excavated soil before it's hauled away to a landfill.

NIPSCO's remediation project is one of several the utility has done to clean up coal tar contamination.