« Ind. Gov't. - "DNR ends talks, to press courts for ‘canned hunting' ban" | Main | Ind. Courts - Feature on Vanderburgh Juvenile Court Judge Brett Niemeier »

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Environment - "U.S. Steel permit a dud"

From an editorial today in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette:

The federal Environmental Protection Agency is rightly stepping in before Indiana establishes pollution standards for a Gary steel mill that environmentalists criticize as too lenient. The action comes months after Indiana stirred controversy by giving a northwest Indiana refinery permission to increase pollution into Lake Michigan.

An early draft of the wastewater discharge permit for U.S. Steel quickly elicited groans of “here we go again” from several environmental organizations. After reviewing the draft, environmental experts voiced concern that Indiana regulators eliminated or failed to include limits on toxic chemical and metal discharges into the Grand Calumet River, a tributary of the Great Lakes.

The proposed Indiana Department of Environmental Management permit apparently fails to adequately limit emissions of oil, lead, arsenic, benzene and nitrates that the U.S. Steel plant in Gary has reported discharging. The permit also relaxes limits on chromium and could allow an increase of 62 percent. Chromium is a heavy metal that pollutes fish. Long-term chromium exposure causes liver, kidney and nervous system damage in humans.

Critics contend the draft permit violates the Clean Water Act and think Indiana deserves the heightened scrutiny from the EPA, particularly given the its track record.

The EPA has issued a pre-emptive strike against the draft wastewater discharge permit. Federal environmental regulators objected to how the proposed permit set discharge limits for several pollutants and questioned the five-year compliance schedule.

The state can’t move forward with the permit without addressing the EPA’s concerns. Moreover, receiving objections from the EPA to a draft permit is unusual.

“We received the letter from the EPA in early October, said Sandra Flum, communications and legislative director for IDEM. “It’s really rare for them to object before the permit is finalized.”

Gitte Laasby of the Gary Post-Tribune reports today, in a story headlined "Pressure mounts on U.S. Steel," that:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent more objections to U.S. Steel Gary Works' wastewater permit Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a dozen environmental groups in Indiana and Illinois sent a joint letter to the EPA to request the agency hold a public hearing on its permit objections.

EPA sent a second letter to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management Tuesday, saying the draft permit indicates that IDEM is allowing the company to increase its discharges of chromium without proof that the pollution would not degrade water quality.

"We're not certain based on the information we've seen if the permit does or does not authorize an increase in pollutants," said Steve Jann, deputy chief of the NPDES programs branch at EPA Region 5. "Indiana could provide additional information to us to clarify."

From Christine Kraly's report today in the NWI Times:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is calling out what it deems are more problems with a U.S. Steel draft wastewater permit, in a new letter sent Wednesday to Indiana regulators.

In a letter sent to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the EPA said it completed a review of the draft permit, and that the permit may not meet state water quality antidegradation rules. (Read the letter.)

The permit also fails to prove U.S. Steel is using the best technology to minimize pollution from its cooling water intake structures, as required by the federal Clean Water Act, according to the letter.

In addition, the story includes a link to the EPA letter.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 18, 2007 09:33 AM
Posted to Environment