Recently two sites in Northwest Indiana, Federated Metals and State Line Generating Plant received attention from the EPA.
Federated Metals, located in the North of Hammond, Indiana, was placed on the Superfund Site in 1990, but it was not listed on the National Priorities List (NPL). The NPL contains the most serious uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites throughout the United States and its territories. Recently, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt of the EPA and Indiana Republican Governor Eric Holcomb showed up in a surprise visit to Hammond, Indiana, and proceeded to announce a $1.7 million grant to clean up Federated.
By providing the $1.7 million now for the Federated site, the EPA pre-empting pre-empting the City from applying to place the site on the NPL which could increase the EPA’s end costs. On the other hand, it provides the city with funding for a quick clean up so that it can begin redevelopment. But this also means that if the City stops the clean up when the $1.7 million runs out, then there is a possibility that if additional clean up is needed, funding for it will not be available The $1.7 million is to be used to clean up homes in which testing indicated lead levels exceeded 1,200 parts per million (ppm). Because this is three times higher than the base level used to determine the EPA’s cleanup of the East Chicago site which was set at 400 ppm and 15 times the base in California which is set at 80 ppm, it is possible that additional clean up will be needed.
Federated Metals Corporation (FMC), which began operating in 1937, is a smelting, refining, recovery and recycling facility for such metals as copper, zinc, and lead. It operated from 1937-1983. 
It was sold to a number of business until, in 2007, Northern Indiana and Whiting Metals purchased it to use for lead smelting.
In 2016, the same year, the EPA began testing soil in the East Chicago West Calumet Housing Development, the Agency also began testing the soil in residences surrounding the facilities now used by Whiting Metals. In accordance with its procedures, it sampled only city-owned properties as these can be tested without individual approval. Findings indicated lead levels were high and in May 2017 EPA began sampling residences of those individuals willing to permit the testing. One year later, results will become known at a meeting at the Whiting YMCA on May 23.
A few weeks prior to the visit by the EPA Administrator, the Mayor of Hammond, who wasn’t invited to the announcement of the Federated grant, announced a developer was about to purchase the defunct State Line Generating Plant to build a NAP (Network Access Protection) Data Center. 
Signs at the entrance to the plant indicate that it is expected to open in 2019. 
Investors Tom Dakich and Peter Feldman plan to invest at least $40 million in the project. Like so much of the toxic industry that has come to the Calumet Region, this development was “blown over” from Chicago. Originally planning to locate the center in Chicago, the developers changed their minds and selected Hammond, close enough to Chicago for the managers to enjoy the amenities of the big city while simultaneously taking advantage of the lower costs (taxes, land, right of work legislation) of doing business in Indiana.
If sites can be cleaned up and developed
in a fashion similar to that of the State Line Plant, this would be good for the region. Not only would it be bringing revenue into the area but it would be transferring out toxic industry and bringing in clean ones.