David Inskeep may have dredged up a mess when he went “mucking” for old tires in the Wildcat Creek this summer.

The current president of the Wildcat Guardians, Inskeep said he was pulling tires out of the stream bed Sept. 12 when he noticed his clothes, skin and canoe were dotted with what appeared to be bits of tar.

He looked closer at the water and discovered an oily scum floating on the surface.

He decided to call the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

Now environmental officials are again looking at a section of the Wildcat adjacent to the old Continental Steel mill.

The stretch of creek was part of a 2007 cleanup, in which a company contracted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency used hydraulic dredging to remove contaminated sediment from the creekbed.

But the presence of the oily scum has raised questions about the effectiveness of the cleanup.

The Guardians, a band of canoeists, kayakers and naturalists dedicated to the preservation of the creek, have been among the biggest supporters of the ongoing Continental Steel cleanup, particularly the work done to remove carcinogenic chemicals from the creek sediment.

That’s why Inskeep and other Guardians are hoping the EPA is able to uncover the source of the oily substance.

“I guess I feel I adopted a section of the creek there, and I feel committed to having a cleaner creek in the future,” Inskeep said. “It’s going to be a generation before things get better, and that’s if we start now.”

Nabil Fayoumi, the EPA project manager for the Continental cleanup, is planning to look at the creek Monday.

Environmental officials are expected to take water samples, and to examine an absorbent boom an EPA emergency response team placed across the Wildcat Creek last week.

Fayoumi said he would be surprised if any contamination was missed when contractor CH2M Hill hydraulically dredged the section in 2007, saying the sediment was dredged out down to the bedrock.

“But it’s an active creek; who’s to say something happened since we were down there,” Fayoumi said.

It’s not the first time oils have been spotted on the surface of what was once a highly contaminated area.

Over the years, spills and discharges from the old mill left pockets of oil and contaminants. Long stretches of both Kokomo Creek and the Wildcat Creek were dredged. The amount of water flowing through the Wildcat made mechanical dredging difficult, so sediment in the Wildcat was drawn out with a vacuum.

The Kokomo Creek, however, was shallow and small enough to allow water to be diverted. Once the streambed was exposed, sediment was scooped out with large excavators.

In the Kokomo Creek, the contractors ended up finding a great deal more contaminated material than originally anticipated.

Now Inskeep and his fellow Guardians are wondering if there’s more material lurking below the surface in the Wildcat.

Inskeep has been corresponding with IDEM officials, who confirmed that oil barrels were pulled from the stream not far from where he’s spotted the oily scum.

Known as “Section 4” in the official cleanup plans, the place where the oily scum continues to circulate lies about 200 yards upstream of where the Wildcat and the Kokomo come together.

The scum seems to be contained between the old Continental Steel dam and the boom. Much of the muck can be seen by climbing down the creekbank to a new “W-shaped” weir, located immediately downstream of the dam.

In a Sept. 15 e-mail to Inskeep, IDEM project manager Pat Likins discussed some of the contamination found in that part of the stream bed.

“In the areas that we dredged, there was a lot of this oil that had settled to the bed of the stream,” Likins wrote. “We pulled six barrels of oil from behind the Continental Steel dam. It is likely you are seeing oil that was in the stream bed, sediments and bank soils and not migrating from another site area. We dredged additional areas when we encountered significant ‘oil pockets.’”

Likins also included part of a January 2008 CH2M Hill report on the Section 4 cleanup, which confirmed the contractors also saw an oily sheen on the water when the hydraulic dredging was taking place.

The report noted the dredging area was expanded at least twice.

The contractors said sediments were tested on two occasions after an oily sheen was noticed, and on both occasions, the level of contaminants in the sediment indicated a need to widen the dredging area.

Fayoumi said he didn’t want to speculate on the nature of the tarry substance Inskeep discovered. He said analysis will determine what will be done next. 

Inskeep said he was “very pleased” with the official response to the Guardians’ concerns.

“They’ve been very responsive. I’m aware they have constraints — a lot to do and a small staff, but they’ve responded to every one of my e-mails and requests, and I appreciate their dedication,” he said.

“I feel like they’re working out there because they really care about the creek.”

• Scott Smith is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He may be reached at 765-454-8569 or via e-mail at scott.smith@kokomotribune.com