Portage Lakefront waters closed

‘Sheen’ from steel plant spotted in Burns Waterway

The Indiana Dunes National Park has closed water access at the Portage Lakefront as a precaution after a “sheen” was spotted Thursday outside the U.S. Steel Midwest Plant.

It was the second incident in less than two weeks.

Visitors can still go to the lakefront, but not into the water, National Park Service spokesman Bruce Rowe said.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management is investigating, spokesman Barry Sneed said.

“We have shut down the rolling mills as we investigate,” U.S. Steel spokeswoman Amanda Malkowski said. “The sheen has been contained by an existing boom and vacuum trucks are removing any accumulation.”

“At this time the leak appears to be contained and we are not observing any sheen outside the boomed area,” she said. “We are working with IDEM, and notifications have been made to other relevant authorities.”

Because the spill appears to be small, the Ogden Dunes water treatment plant is still running, while the company is watching its intake monitors, Indiana American Water spokesman Joseph Loughmiller said.

“We do not anticipate an impact,” he said.

The steelmaker said iron was the source of a “rusty”-colored spill that leached out into Burns Waterway on Sept. 26. Initial water sampling found no chemicals above permit limits, nor “visible” impacts to the environment, fish or wildlife, it said in a letter filed to IDEM.

The spill happened after an operator accidentally put too much sulfuric acid into the wastewater treatment plant, according to IDEM documents.

A coalition of environmental groups — including Alliance for the Great Lakes, Save the Dunes, Indiana Wildlife Foundation, Hoosier Environmental Council and Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center — called for more regulations. That included stiffer penalties for “chronic polluters,” stronger pollution controls, more funding and leeway for IDEM, and a wide review of its permitting process.

“It is clear that Indiana’s system of water pollution control regulation is broken,” according to an

Oct. 1 letter sent to Gov. Eric Holcomb.

Meanwhile, Ogden Dunes closed its beaches Thursday after a town council member reported a “brown substance” coming from the plant’s outflow pipe, according to its Facebook page.

A second apparent spill comes several weeks after a federal judge approved a revised settlement with the company, more than four years after the Portage plant discharged wastewater containing a potentially carcinogenic chemical into the Burns Waterway.

U.S. Steel agreed to pay a $601,242 civil penalty and more than $625,000 to reimburse various agencies for costs associated with their response in April 2017 after the plant spilled 300 pounds of hexavalent chromium — or 584 times the daily maximum limit allowed under state permitting laws.