Stimulus Funds Will Help Clean
Up Waukegan Harbor Area

The OMC site is part of a Waukegan Harbor redevelopment plan for two miles of shoreline. OMC Plant 2, pictured, has been targeted for residential housing and open space since 2003. Waukegan Mayor Robert Sabonjian doesn’t see developing occurring for four to six years.

Cleanup of an asbestos and PCB-contamination at the former Outboard Marine Corp. Plant 2 at Waukegan Harbor on Lake Michigan began Feb. 19, 2010, thanks to $18.5 million in federal stimulus funds.

The 600,000-square-foot plant will be razed.

The plant was in operation from 1948 until late 2000. At its peak in the 1970s, the plant employed 6,000 workers to built Johnson marine engines.

Mathy Stanislaus, an EPA administrator, and Waukegan Mayor Robert Sabonjian took a few ceremonial swings of the sledgehammer at a corner of the building to mark the official start of the demolition.

A $13-million cleanup of the trichloralethyelene-contaminated ground under the plant begins after the demoltion. This effort is one of several Superfund site cleanup projects for the harbor area.