Indiana Dunes National Park is cleaning house.

Thanks to almost $1.4 million in funding from the National Park Service, contractors are removing 25 structures and former roadbeds from one end of the park to the other. The work, which began in mid-September and continues through the end of April, includes 13 sites in Gary; five sites in Michigan City; four in Chesterton; two in Beverly Shores; and one in Porter.

The last time the park undertook a similar venture was a few years ago, said Superintendent Paul Labovitz, who added the work taking place now is actually the second phase of that undertaking because the contracting process takes a long time to come to fruition.

“They’re not historic buildings. This is part of the long game of the National Park Service to remove the noncontributing elements from the park,” he said. “These things have become an attractive nuisance.”

The effort is focused on removing physical evidence of development within the park’s boundaries, Labovitz said, a reminder that the park was once a lived-in place. In hindsight, people should have been allowed to continue living within the park and maintain those properties.

“It’s live and learn for the park service, too. It’s only 104 years old,” he said.

The park service has been working for 40 years to rid its properties of such structures, Labovitz said. At the park here, abandoned homes and other structures have become the target of break-ins, with evidence of drug use and partying left behind.

Removing those structures, he added, make for a more natural habitat.

“People like to come and not see development,” he said.

The park keeps a list of old structures that aren’t going to be used any longer and can be demolished, said Bruce Rowe, the park’s public information officer and supervisory ranger.

The demo list for this round of projects includes vacated structures; outbuildings; walkways; driveways; revetment walls; septic tanks; unused road segments; and abandonment of existing water wells.

The park asks for funds every couple of years to tear the structures out.

“We don’t always get it,” Rowe said, adding park service properties across the country compete for the funding.

Once the structures are removed, he said, sand or grass is put down where appropriate and the park’s maintenance division plants native species if necessary.

“It’s making the park a little more natural,” Rowe said.

In total, the park received $1,382,385 to remove the old structures.

Augustin Perez Maldonado, a civil engineer with the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service who’s overseeing the work, said getting the funding approved can take two or three years.

“It’s a long process,” he said.

Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.