# Research Note — 2026-05-28

## Confirmed facts
- EPA’s Grand Calumet River AOC remediation page, last updated February 19, 2026, says the Junction Reaches construction activities are scheduled to begin in Fall 2026.
- The same page says monitoring of the Lake George Canal middle section continues through 2027 and that additional remediation activities may occur in 2028.
- EPA’s March 11, 2026 Indiana Superfund review notice includes U.S. Smelter and Lead Refinery, Inc. in East Chicago among the sites undergoing five-year reviews this year.
- EPA’s Northwest Indiana Program Contacts page was last updated January 30, 2026 and lists Victoria Wittig, Ph.D. as the Northwest Indiana Urban Waters Ambassador at Purdue University Northwest in Hammond.

## Working hypotheses
- East Chicago, Hammond, and Whiting should be treated as a dynamic cleanup-and-redevelopment corridor, not static background terrain.
- A pre-field check for the EPA Grand Calumet remediation projects page is worth adding alongside the Urban Waters work-plan and contacts checks because planned construction and monitoring windows may affect access and local context.
- Cleanup-window metadata can improve route planning, but it should stay separate from any EMF interpretation.

## Practical pilot implications
- Add a corridor-state note when a route crosses the Grand Calumet / East Chicago cleanup window.
- Keep the exposure model unchanged; the useful upgrade is better corridor metadata, not a new theory.

## Additional research — 2026-05-28

### Confirmed facts
- NIOSH’s EMF measurement manual treats spot measurements, area monitoring, walkthrough surveys, source surveys, and personal monitoring as different methods, and says spot measurements do not capture temporal variation.
- WHO’s ELF backgrounder says magnetic fields are strongest near sources and diminish with distance; it also recommends exposure measurements where levels might exceed limits.
- ICNIRP’s low-frequency guideline distinguishes between occupational and public exposure and is based on established acute effects, not speculative chronic effects.
- NIPSCO’s public neighborhood-work pages list Electric and Gas Projects, Gas Meter Inspection Program, Locating Gas Lines, Advanced Metering - AMI, and Property Restoration as official categories, which makes those labels useful route-context tags.
- NIPSCO’s Advanced Metering - AMI page says the rollout has been underway since March 2024 and is being installed in phased increments across approximately 500,000 electric and 900,000 gas customers.
- NIPSCO’s Electric and Gas Projects page says project work can include property-state documentation, photos or video, and preliminary work such as locating and marking underground utilities before construction begins.
- EPA’s Program Contacts page for Northwest Indiana was last updated January 30, 2026 and lists Victoria Wittig, Ph.D. as the Northwest Indiana Urban Waters Ambassador at Purdue University Northwest in Hammond.
- The 2025 Northwest Indiana Urban Waters Federal Partnership work plan says the Ambassador position is hosted through a shared agreement with Purdue University Northwest.
- EPA’s Grand Calumet River AOC page says Junction Reaches construction is scheduled to begin in Fall 2026 and Lake George Canal monitoring continues through 2027 with possible additional remediation in 2028.

### Working hypotheses
- The pilot gets more defensible if each stop is tagged with one clear measurement mode and one clear source-context label instead of mixing them later.
- Route planning will be cleaner if NIPSCO work categories are logged as observable context rather than inferred exposure drivers.
- Grand Calumet / East Chicago corridor metadata probably matters more for route quality than for the EMF exposure model itself.

### Practical pilot upgrades
- Keep stationary spot, walking scan, and body-worn data in separate buckets all the way through analysis.
- Add a short `measurement_mode` note at every stop so repeatability and comparability are obvious on review.
- Add official NIPSCO category labels to the route checklist when utility work is visible.
- Add a corridor-state tag for Grand Calumet / East Chicago cleanup windows so active remediation does not get folded into the EMF signal.
- Add `preliminary_work` as a distinct route-context flag whenever crews are locating or marking utilities, documenting property state, or otherwise doing setup work before construction.
- Treat AMI and system-upgrade labels as official utility-program context, not as exposure findings.
- Keep these route-context flags separate from the exposure value so access problems and utility work phases do not get mistaken for higher EMF.

## Sources used
- https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/5254/cdc_5254_DS1.pdf
- https://www.who.int/teams/environment-climate-change-and-health/radiation-and-health/non-ionizing/exposure
- https://www.icnirp.org/cms/upload/publications/ICNIRPLFgdl.pdf
- https://www.nipsco.com/our-company/news-room/news-article
- https://www.epa.gov/great-lakes-aocs/remediation-and-restoration-projects-grand-calumet-river-aoc
- https://www.epa.gov/urbanwaterspartners/program-contacts-northwest-indiana-indiana
- https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2025-05/2025-nwi-uwfp-work-plan.pdf
- https://www.nipsco.com/services/work-in-your-neighborhood/advanced-metering-ami
- https://www.nipsco.com/services/work-in-your-neighborhood/system-upgrades

## Update — 2026-05-28 05:20 CT

## Confirmed facts
- NIOSH’s occupational EMF manual explicitly separates spot measurements, walkthrough surveys, area monitoring, source surveys, and personal monitoring, and warns that spot measurements do not capture temporal variation.
- WHO says ELF magnetic fields are strongest near sources and diminish with distance, and that exposure measurements should be taken where levels may exceed limits.
- ICNIRP’s 1 Hz–100 kHz guideline applies to both occupational and public exposure and is grounded in established acute effects.
- NIPSCO’s system-upgrades page says most digging occurs in public right-of-way or yards, equipment may be in the street, and crews may temporarily block streets, lanes, or driveways.
- NIPSCO’s gas AMI page says installations are phased, may require access if a meter is behind a locked gate, and meter exchanges may involve temporary service interruption.
- EPA’s Grand Calumet remediation page says Junction Reaches construction starts in Fall 2026 and Lake George Canal middle-section monitoring continues through 2027 with additional remediation possible in 2028.

## Working hypotheses
- The cleanest upgrade is to make route context more explicit, not to complicate the exposure model.
- A separate cleanup-window note will help keep active remediation, utility work, and measurement data from getting jammed into one bucket.
- Measurement mode should be treated as first-class metadata, because stationary spot readings and moving scans are not interchangeable.

## Practical pilot implications
- The README, field protocol, checklist, and analysis plan were tightened to require a Grand Calumet remediation-page check on East Chicago / Hammond / Whiting routes.
- The field docs now keep cleanup-window context separate from source class, source state, and access metadata.
- The pilot is better armed against fake patterns caused by route friction, active remediation, or mixed measurement modes.

## Sources used
- https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/5254/cdc_5254_DS1.pdf
- https://www.who.int/teams/environment-climate-change-and-health/radiation-and-health/non-ionizing/exposure
- https://www.icnirp.org/cms/upload/publications/ICNIRPLFgdl.pdf
- https://www.nipsco.com/services/work-in-your-neighborhood/system-upgrades
- https://www.nipsco.com/services/work-in-your-neighborhood/advanced-metering-ami/gas-ami
- https://www.epa.gov/great-lakes-aocs/remediation-and-restoration-projects-grand-calumet-river-aoc

## Update — 2026-05-28 08:15 CT

### Confirmed facts
- EPA’s Grand Calumet River AOC page now gives estimated completion years in its project table: Junction Reaches (2028 est.), Lake George Canal East and Middle sections (2028 est.), Dune, Swale and Shelf Wetlands Restoration (2026 est.), and East Branch Phase II (2030 est.).
- NIPSCO’s meter-info page says a limited number of existing gas meters had mismatched components discovered during AMI rollout, affecting less than 1% of natural gas customers.
- The same NIPSCO page says the issue was not caused by AMI and that impacted meters are expected to be corrected by the end of 2026.

### Working hypotheses
- The new NIPSCO meter note strengthens the case for logging AMI-related visits, meter exchanges, and billing/maintenance anomalies as utility-ops context rather than exposure signal.
- The EPA project table is worth treating as route-planning metadata, but not as evidence of an EMF mechanism.

### Practical pilot implications
- If a stop involves AMI or meter work, keep `construction_context`, `source_state`, and any billing/maintenance anomaly separate so legacy meter issues do not get mistaken for EMF findings.
- Use the updated EPA project horizons only to tag corridor context and likely access friction on East Chicago / Hammond routes.

## Update — 2026-05-28 10:15 CT

### Confirmed facts
- EPA and partners announced more than $200 million to clean up two Grand Calumet River AOC sites: Junction Reaches and Lake George Canal. The agreement covers more than 240,000 cubic yards across 100 acres, and construction is expected to begin in late 2026.
- EPA’s Grand Calumet River AOC page says more than 2 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment have already been remediated, and that six of the 12 sediment projects and two of the five habitat projects needed to delist the AOC are complete.
- NIPSCO’s AMI and system-upgrades pages continue to frame property documentation, locates, and temporary access impacts as ordinary utility-work context, not as exposure data.
- EPA’s Northwest Indiana program contacts page still lists Victoria Wittig, Ph.D. as the Northwest Indiana Urban Waters Ambassador at Purdue University Northwest in Hammond.

### Working hypotheses
- East Chicago and Hammond should now be treated as an active remediation corridor with a coordinated late-2026 mobilization window.
- The best improvement is still metadata discipline: remediation phase, utility-work phase, and measurement mode should stay separate from EMF values.

### Practical pilot implications
- Add a `cleanup_phase` or `project_timing` tag for East Chicago / Hammond stops: `late-2026 mobilization`, `ongoing monitoring`, or `legacy/completed`.
- Keep the cleanup tag separate from source state and access constraints so route logistics do not turn construction timing into fake exposure signal.
- No change to the exposure model yet; this is still a route-context upgrade.

### Sources used
- https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-and-partners-announce-more-200-million-clean-grand-calumet-river-area-concern
- https://www.epa.gov/great-lakes-aocs/remediation-and-restoration-projects-grand-calumet-river-aoc
- https://www.epa.gov/urbanwaterspartners/program-contacts-northwest-indiana-indiana
- https://www.nipsco.com/services/work-in-your-neighborhood/advanced-metering-ami
- https://www.nipsco.com/services/work-in-your-neighborhood/system-upgrades

## Update — 2026-05-28 12:15 CT

### Confirmed facts
- NIPSCO’s Meter Info page says a very limited number of existing gas meters had mismatched components discovered during AMI rollout, affecting less than 1% of natural gas customers.
- The same page says the issue was not caused by AMI and that overbilled customers will receive credits while impacted bills are corrected.
- EPA and the East Chicago Waterway Management District announced a project agreement for two Grand Calumet River AOC sites, Junction Reaches and Lake George Canal, covering more than 240,000 cubic yards across 100 acres, with construction expected to begin in late 2026.

### Working hypotheses
- Billing or meter-integrity anomalies should be logged as utility-ops context, not EMF signal.
- The new cleanup agreement is useful as corridor-scale timing and scope metadata, but not as exposure evidence.

### Practical pilot implications
- Keep any AMI or meter-issue stop separate from steady utility-adjacent background and note billing/maintenance anomalies explicitly if they appear.
- If a route passes through the Grand Calumet corridor again, add project-scale context alongside the existing cleanup-phase tag so access friction and mobilization intensity stay visible without contaminating the exposure column.

### Sources used
- https://www.nipsco.com/campaigns/meter-info
- https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-and-partners-announce-more-200-million-clean-grand-calumet-river-area-concern

## Update — 2026-05-28 22:20 CT

### Confirmed facts
- NIOSH’s EMF manual explicitly separates spot measurements, walkthrough surveys, area monitoring, source surveys, and personal monitoring, and warns that spot measurements do not capture temporal variation.
- That makes measurement-family metadata worth recording when a pilot needs to compare stationary spot data against moving or personal samples without fooling itself.

### Working hypothesis
- A `method_family` field should reduce downstream confusion better than trying to infer the family later from notes alone.

### Practical pilot implications
- The field log template now includes `method_family`.
- The field protocol, analysis plan, and checklists now tell the team to keep spot, walkthrough, area, source, and personal monitoring separate unless a transformation is explicit.

### Sources used
- https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/98-154/default.html