Three Lake Michigan beaches remain closed after a northwest Indiana steel mill dumped toxic chemicals into a tributary earlier this week, an incident that was not reported to the public until hundreds of dead fish began floating past boaters.
Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal notified Indiana officials on Monday that a plume of cyanide and ammonia from its Burns Harbor steel mill had spilled into a branch of the Little Calumet River. But the mayor of Portage, a lakefront city west of the plant, said the state’s environmental agency did not alert local officials or citizens until Thursday.
As a precaution, the National Park Service closed the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk beach area at Indiana Dunes National Park. The neighboring community of Ogden Dunes also closed its beach and restricted its Lake Michigan water intake.
Portage Mayor John Cannon said state officials and the region’s steel industry should be required to promptly notify local communities about chemical spills and other violations of environmental laws. The mayor “holds ArcelorMittal responsible,” Cannon said Friday in a statement.
Cyanide is used by the steel industry to electroplate and clean metals. ArcelorMittal legally discharged more than 175 pounds of the toxic chemical into the Little Calumet River during 2016, according to federal records. But in a statement Friday, the company acknowledged that it violated legal limits on the amount of cyanide and ammonia released during a single day.
“ArcelorMittal apologizes and accepts responsibility for the incident from the Burns Harbor facility,” said William Steers, a company spokesman. “We are working closely with state and federal regulatory agencies to address the situation and to prevent its reoccurrence.”
The company said it already has fixed a malfunctioning system that circulates water through the plant’s blast furnaces. It also is collecting water samples daily from a pair of sewage outfalls and every quarter-mile of the Little Calumet downstream.
“We are confident that the facility’s wastewater system is operating within normal ranges,” Steers said.
The spill — and the delayed public notification — raise new questions about state and federal regulation of the region’s steel industry.
ArcelorMittal’s plant has violated the Clean Water Act during five of the past 12 quarters, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website that tracks enforcement and compliance.
In November 2017, a U.S. Steel plant next door to the ArcelorMittal mill dumped hexavalent chromium, a highly toxic metal, into another Lake Michigan tributary and asked state environmental regulators to keep it secret.
Law students from the University of Chicago discovered a report on the spill while tracking pollution violations at factories along the Great Lake. Federal officials didn’t know about the spill until the Chicago Tribune began asking questions about it.
U.S. Steel later agreed to pay nearly $900,000 to settle a federal lawsuit, a penalty critics said would fail to deter the company from continuing to violate the Clean Water Act.
“Time and time again what we see is a lack of oversight and weak enforcement in northwest Indiana,” said Robert Weinstock, a professor at the U. of C. Abrams Environmental Law Clinic. “Without significant penalties, there is no incentive for these companies to invest in environmentally responsible operations.”
mhawthorne@chicagotribune.com
