Indiana mill seeks relaxed regulations

Indiana is moving to scale back limits on pollutants dumped into a Lake Michigan tributary by the sprawling U.S. Steel Corp. mill in Gary, according to environmental lawyers and former federal regulators who have reviewed a proposed water permit.

Language outlining the changes is buried in 117 pages under consideration by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, which provoked a public outcry this year when it gave a nearby BP refinery permission to significantly increase pollution discharged into the lake.

BP explicitly asked to dump more pollution. By contrast, Indiana regulators and U.S. Steel officials say this proposal will not allow the Gary Works to increase the amount of oil, grease, metals and chemicals pumped into the Grand Calumet River before it empties into Lake Michigan.

However, the permit appears to tell a different story, raising questions about Indiana’s enforcement of federal and state laws intended to clean up the nation’s lakes and rivers.

The Gary Works, a massive complex of blast furnaces, coke ovens and steel-finishing mills about 15 miles southeast of Chicago, already is the largest source of water pollution in the Lake Michigan basin, dumping more than 1.7 million pounds in 2005.

Experts who have analyzed the mill’s proposed new permit say that at some points where the steel mill discharges waste into the river, Indiana regulators eliminated or failed to include limits on toxic chemicals and metals.

Specifically, U.S. Steel reports discharging oil and grease, lead, arsenic, benzene, fluoride and nitrates from wastewater pipes at the mill, yet the draft permit fails to limit emissions of these pollutants at all discharge points.

Critics contend that the lack of more stringent standards for the Gary Works violates the Clean Water Act. The Grand Calumet River carries the mill’s pollution into Lake Michigan, which is the source of drinking water for Chicago and scores of other communities.

If the permit is approved, critics say, the mill would be cleared to dump more chemicals and heavy metals even as Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel is paying to dredge millions of cubic yards of contaminated muck out of the river from decades of pollution.