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Activists Still Wary of US Steel Permit

Environmental groups are still not convinced that U.S. Steel-Gary Works will not be increasing its discharges to the Grand Calumet River and Lake Michigan when the company's wastewater permit is renewed.

"The issue of whether or not there's additional discharges, there may be semantics involved in how to interpret that," said Susan MiHalo, president of Save the Dunes. "We haven't gotten a satisfactory answer from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. U.S. Steel can say what they want, that's fine, but IDEM needs to back them up on that."

In a written statement to the Post-Tribune last week, U.S. Steel officials said there are increases in production or permit limits.

"The draft permit has no discharge limit increases; in fact, it has several more stringent limits," the statement said.

Save the Dunes has asked IDEM to do a better job explaining the overall impact of a permit on the environment, for instance how much of various pollutants is being discharged overall and whether that's more or less than before.

Several environmental groups, including Save the Dunes, also tell IDEM they worry the permit will jeopardize efforts to clean up the Grand Calumet River.

"We had a real problem with the fact that the permit, we don't think, addresses the existing conditions in the river. We want IDEM to require that discharges do not contribute to water quality problems. We think this permit will make it worse," said Ann Alexander, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The organization collaborated with the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center to submit 31 pages of comments.

IDEM estimates $500 million has been spent cleaning the river, according to Save the Dunes.

Environmental groups also question whether IDEM has checked U.S. Steel's stormwater pollution prevention plan to make sure the company does enough to prevent contaminated stormwater from running into Lake Michigan or the river.

"Stormwater runs across contamination and into the lake and you have to find a way to prevent that. The EPA has set up some ways to do that and we don't know whether they've done that and whether IDEM has checked," Alexander said.