The Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor is an industrial area, founded in 1965 and located on the

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...

shore of

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th ...

at the intersection of

U.S. Route 12 U.S. Route 12 (US 12) is an east–west United States highway, running from Aberdeen, Washington, to Detroit, Michigan, for almost . The highway has mostly been superseded by Interstate 90 (I-90) and I-94, but unlike most U.S. routes that ...

and

Indiana State Road 249 State Road 249 (SR 249) is a part of the Indiana State Road that runs between Portage and Burns Harbor in the US state of Indiana. The of SR 249 that lie within Indiana serve as an access to the Port of Indiana. None of the highwa ...

. The primary work done in the area is the manufacturing of

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistan ...

, and the port area is dominated by

steel mill A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also be a plant where steel semi-fini ...

s. The port is divided between the municipalities of Burns Harbor and

Portage Portage or portaging (Canada: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a ...

. Construction of the Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor was extremely controversial, with conservationists fighting to preserve a segment of the Indiana Dunes that occupied the site of the future port. The port and its steel mills were constructed on top of what was once the ''Central Dunes'' region of the

Indiana Dunes Indiana Dunes National Park is a United States national park located in northwestern Indiana managed by the National Park Service. It was authorized by Congress in 1966 as the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and was redesignated as the nation ...

and site of some of the hanggliding experiments carried out by a crew led by pioneer aviator

Octave Chanute Octave Chanute (February 18, 1832 – November 23, 1910) was a French-American civil engineer and aviation pioneer. He provided many budding enthusiasts, including the Wright brothers, with help and advice, and helped to publicize their flying ...

. Authorization of the Indiana Dunes National Park, which borders the Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor on three sides, was part of a political compromise that also involved the construction of the port.

Port economy

The Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor, as of 2015, is dominated by three extensive industrial plants: * Gary Works-Midwest Plant, a unit of the U.S. Steel Corporation. * The Burns Harbor steel works of

Cleveland-Cliffs Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., formerly Cliffs Natural Resources, is a Cleveland, Ohio-based company that specializes in the mining, beneficiation, and pelletizing of iron ore, as well as steelmaking, including stamping and tooling. It is the largest f ...

(formerly

ArcelorMittal ArcelorMittal S.A. is a Luxembourgian multinational steel manufacturing corporation headquartered in Luxembourg City. It was formed in 2006 from the takeover and merger of Arcelor by Indian-owned Mittal Steel. ArcelorMittal is the second ...

), originally constructed by the former

Bethlehem Steel The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. For most of the 20th century, it was one of the world's largest steel producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its succ ...

Corporation. * The Northern Indiana Public Service Bailly generating station owned by

NiSource NiSource Inc. is one of the largest fully regulated utility companies in the United States, serving approximately 3.5 million natural gas customers and 500,000 electric customers across six states through its local Columbia Gas and NIPSCO brands ...

Port history

When Bethlehem Steel and advocates for preservation of the Central Dunes crossed swords in Congress in the early 1960s, the steel company won. Two key arguments used by Bethlehem in their successful campaign were increased

national security National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military att ...

from the production of American steel, and the creation of well-paid jobs in a field that was then dominated by the

United Steelworkers The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, commonly known as the United Steelworkers (USW), is a general trade union with members across North America. Headquar ...

union. Two arguments advanced by the people opposed to the project were that the mill could have easily been located directly east of Gary, in a less sensitive and strategic ecological zone, and that large infrastructure projects, which would amount to a tax subsidy, were needed to construct a mill in this area. Making steel in the Burns Harbor area required support from the federal government because of the shallow waters of Lake Michigan offshore from the sand dunes. In order to make it possible for

lake freighter Lake freighters, or lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that operate on the Great Lakes of North America. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships. Since the late 19th century, lakers have carried bulk cargoes of ma ...

s to bring

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the ...

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

, and

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

to the steel mills, extensive dredging and engineering work was necessary. This work linked the

Little Calumet River The Calumet River is a system of heavily industrialized rivers and canals in the region between the south side of Chicago, Illinois, and the city of Gary, Indiana. Historically, the Little Calumet River and the Grand Calumet River were one, the ...

to Lake Michigan via Burns Ditch. Congress, as part of the River and Harbor Act of 1965, instructed the Army Corps of Engineers to carry out the necessary work to create and maintain the artificial harbor that would become the Port of Indiana. In line with overall Great Lakes standards, the docking areas are dredged to a depth of at least 27 feet (8 m). The port is protected by 8,230 feet (2,510 m) of steel and rubblemound breakwaters. In addition to the federal help, the state of Indiana showed its support for the ''Port of Indiana'' project by constructing two roads, Indiana 149 and Indiana 249, to serve the new industrial area.

Port recreational use

The Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor also contains the ''Burns Waterway Small Boat Harbor'', a -long canal, dredged to a depth of 6 feet (1.8 m), extending inland from Lake Michigan to south of U.S. Highway 12. It is located west of ''Burns Waterway Harbor'', at . This boat harbor provides access to the inland Portage Marina and Marina Shores, a private, 300-boat marina/condominium complex under development as of 2011. The marina is successful, but the housing development failed in the early stages of development. Other than the small boat harbor, much of the Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor is a "restricted area" as of 2019, and the public is not admitted within most of the port area.

Port incidents

The joint use of the Port of Indiana for industrial and recreational purposes has led to incidents. In August 2019, ArcelorMittal inadvertently vented elevated levels of

ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous ...

and

cyanide Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms. In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...

from a Burns Harbor blast furnace into the Little Calumet River. Hundreds of fish were killed. Elements of the Port of Indiana public infrastructure, including the river and adjacent boardwalk, were temporarily closed to the public. In February 2022, Cleveland-Cliffs (which had acquired the mill from ArcelorMittal) agreed to a $3 million settlement based on the incident.

References

{{reflist

External links

Link to National Park Service map of the Port of Indiana

Port of Indiana–Burns Harbor

Geography of Porter County, Indiana Indiana populated places on Lake Michigan Transportation in Porter County, Indiana