Thomas East Chicago, Environment

[ Everyone's Downstream IV ] International Conference - November 25 - 28, Edmonton, Alberta

Below is my presentation on East Chicago and BP’s Canadian Crude project.

Click on image to begin slideshow.

[ Video Archive ] of Conference

Thomas East Chicago, Energy, Environment, Northwest Indiana, Tar Sands

Thomas East Chicago, Environment

Should my community trust this company?
The power of this company determines our quality of life. They funded Congressmen Visclosky’s “Good Government Initiative.” They tell planners writing community and regional comprehensive planning initiatives what they will tolerate.

Thomas East Chicago, Economics, Energy, Environment

This is why I love East Chicago (cell phone photos).

Click on image to begin slideshow.

Thomas East Chicago Portrait Series

25-years-ago BP abandoned its professional training facilities in Robertsdale, donating the facilities to Calumet College, and moved to a 200-acre LEED certified campus in Naperville. They did so because they could no longer attract professionals to this location due to Quality of Life issues. Quality of Life issues they had a major hand in creating.

Today BP’s professional staff enjoy the healthy work environment of a green campus with ample buffering between office buildings and roadways, while residents adjacent to the BP’s refinery are not so fortunate. Today BP is constructing a whole new facility at their East Chicago / Whiting Refinery to refine the “No Good, Very Bad, Dirty” heavy sour crude from the Alberta Tars Sands and to do so they are constructing 6 cokers directly across the street from the Marktown Historic District where more than 120 children under the age of 18 live, play and sleep.

BP likes to refer to the project as a modernization or retooling project. This is an important distinction to them because to call it what is, a “new facility” or “new construction,” would trigger all sorts of regulatory reviews and permitting, including a new-source review requiring an environmental and health risk assessment. I am not certain if there has ever been a risk assessment done on the impacts the BP refinery has the neighboring communities. I don’t know if that is because they have been grandfathered in or what. I just know that new construction ought to trigger a new source review and that is not happening.

For labor purposes BP calls the project a “maintenance project.” Thus they bypass all sorts of labor rules in terms of pay, scheduling, and work conditions as would be the case for new construction. Let’s make this simple, if I tore down my house to construct a brand new home, I could not go to City Hall seeking a maintenance permit for the new construction. I would be required to seek the proper permits and follow requirements for new construction. This is just one way in which BP has been cutting corners here to save themselves costs. I can’t say what other cost cutting measures BP is making, but I do know they did not do this without the aid of regional leadership. I wonder what our regional leadership is thinking now as we learn more about the costs of BP practices to the gulf region.

This is a good environmental justice example of how benefits-without-risks are created and separated from risks-without-benefits in a free-market economy. Free-market corporations and present day land use policies have a very intentional consequent of accumulating wealth and benefits in one location while clustering risks and blight in another. All too often the geography of separation is as clear as the “Northshore” and “Southshore” designations.

It makes me wonder if anyone working in office complexes similar to the BP complex in Naperville feel any sense of culpability for the lives negatively impacted on the other side of their company’s production line. What about Kraft Foods? what about Grainger? what about Cargill? and U.S. Steel? and ArcelorMittal? Boeing? GATX? or Ryerson?

[ Wikipedia list of Corp HQ in the Chicago Met area ]

Compounding problems, BP extracted an additional $165 million in tax abatements from the mostly poor people of Marktown and East Chicago. They did this behind closed doors, and without a single public hearing, all while lecturing the region on “Good Government.” Despite efforts, residents, who pay the highest property taxes in the state at 7.4%, still do not know that they gave up $165 million to BP. BP accomplished this feat by spreading the wealth to voting districts outside the plume of negative externalities while taking advantage of their partnerships with corrupt local political enterprises under the plume. BP is well known for this form of philanthropic activity and I could go on about “to whom” and “how much” was given, but that will have to be for another post. Let these two examples suffice for now.

Three years ago a $25-million donation from BP capped Phase 1 of a three-part expansion and renovation campaign. Since 2002, BP had agreed to more than $125 million in state and regional legal settlements over pollution problems.

Art museums are often the beneficiaries of largess from corporations wishing to polish their sometimes less-than-gleaming image. (Cigarette, anyone?) Oops.

via [ LA Times ] BP Grand Entrance at LACMA looking not-quite-so-grand

In 2009 BP gave to Napperville for $1 an extremely expensive Hydrogen fueling station with multipliers of positive effects.

Thomas East Chicago Portrait Series, Energy, Environment, Tar Sands

UNDER THE PLUME OF PERMITTING

Thomas East Chicago, Environment, Information Graphics, Ways of Seeing

Sometimes it takes a disaster like the Earth Day Disaster to realize our hometowns and our future have been colonized.

Thomas East Chicago Portrait Series, Economics, Energy, Environment, Infrastructure, Politics

THE MONEY IS FLOWING AGAIN IN E.C. POLITICS

Yesterday, I produced some campaign literature for our precinct committeewoman.

Hopefully, I’ve been successful in communicating how contentious politics can get here. This year’s off-cycle election is especially interesting. Besides a few important county wide offices, this election will be remembered for the East Chicago committee person races. Everyone is expecting our Mayor, the Honorable George Pabey, to be found guilty sometime this summer, which would mean that the precinct committee people will appoint the next Mayor. So everyone is either getting into a race or trying to stack the races. Pabey is trying to stack the precincts with people loyal to him as is Hammond Mayor John McDermott and Mayoral hopefuls John Aguilera and Anthony Copeland.

<Interesting fact>

The Federal Prosecutors Office has had a central roll in initiating the last three changes in power here in East Chicago. Why such intense interest at the Federal level? Could the largest inland oil refinery and steel mills in the country have anything to do with that?

I wonder if this is how Oil and Steel get to vote in local politics?

- Just Asking

</Interesting fact>

Thomas East Chicago, Local

I will be participating in Paul Sargent’s “Precious Cargo” show in Buffalo this month.

Precious Cargo
March 18 – May 15, 2010
University at Buffalo Art Gallery
Opening Reception: March 18, 5 – 7pm
Screening Event: May 14, 2010
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center

Precious Cargo is an exhibition of contemporary art and design projects addressing the flow of goods and services in an interdependent post-global world.  Organized by multidisciplinary artist Paul Lloyd Sargent, works in this exhibition critique and complicate such binary oppositions as: inter/national vs. regional/local transport, [interdependent] global trade vs. [self-sufficient] local trade, supply chain vs. disposal chain, resource exhaustion vs. sustainable culture, consumption vs. reuse, resource vs. commodity, and more.  This is the second exhibition in an annual Artist in Residence program in which artists are invited to transform the gallery space over the duration of the exhibition run, providing audiences an opportunity to engage the artist-at-work and witness the transformation of the gallery over time.  Sargent will be working in the gallery on March 20, 30 & 31 and April 1, 6, 7 & 8 constructing “Not To Scale,” a working relief map of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway made entirely from found objects illustrating the lock system, canals, and waterways necessary for travel from the Atlantic Ocean to ports along each of the Great Lakes.

Contributing works in the UB Art Gallery will be:
The Center for Land Use Interpretation(CLUI)
The Center for Urban Pedagogy(CUP)
Compass Group working in the MRCC
Thomas Frank
Chris Jordan
Stella Marrs
Mary Mattingly
Lize Mogel
Stephanie Rothenberg
Sam Sebren
The Waterpod®
Alex Young
View Larger Map

Thomas East Chicago Portrait Series, In My Studio

Today Manuel Mendoza, my wife’s past student, visited us with wonderful news. He just received a phone call from Harvard and told he was accepted. In his excitement he felt he had to tell his sixth-grade teacher first - Kristin. Kristin was in tears with pride. What a day…

Congratulations Manuel! Congratulation Kristin!

From the [ NWI Times ] E.C. Student Headed to Harvard By Steve Zabroski

EAST CHICAGO | An East Chicago Central High School senior will be heading to Harvard University in the fall.

Manuel Mendoza, 17, learned this week he had been accepted by the prestigious Ivy League school.

His father, Mike Mendoza, said the Indiana Harbor area resident plans to major in chemistry.

“This young man is destined for great things,” Central High Principal Larry Allen said. “He’s a terrific role model, and we’re all very proud of him.”

Manuel Mendoza comes from a class of very smart students in the city, said Kristin Frank, a teacher for the group through the gifted and talented program at Franklin Elementary School.

“He’s had a plan since sixth grade to go to Harvard,” Frank said. “He’s absolutely brilliant — they’re people I will never forget.”

Manuel Mendoza is putting in long hours after class with the school’s award-winning Science Olympiad team, his father said, in preparation for next month’s competition.

As a sophomore in 2008, Mendoza was part of the first-ever Central High science team to make it to the state finals.

“It’s great that Manuel has chosen Harvard for his continuing education,” Allen said. “There are many schools in Indiana that have never had a student attend Harvard.”

Thomas East Chicago Portrait Series

During these difficult economic times there are many losers, including our land, water, air, biology and the local population. This is especially amplified by the more than 40-years since the Industry’s fortunes where coupled with those of the community’s. The results of this decoupling can be horribly seen in the our cultural landscape of existing conditions,

This is what I see when I look at existing conditions and opportunities along the southern shores of Lake Michigan here in East Chicago. Below you will find someone else’s vision which is limited to reindustrialize our lakefront.

Existing Conditions:

• A Gated Industrial Community
• Arguably the most polluted waters in the country - the Indiana Harbor Shipping Canal (IHSC)
  • Joerse Beach: most contaminated beach in the Great Lakes and third most in the country.
• Arguably the most polluted air-shed in the country - Lake county indiana ranking as the 9th most polluted air-shed in the country with the sources of pollution concentrated on East Chicago’s lakefront
• >80% of East Chicago’s land-use is dedicated to heavy industry - ~50 of these industrial lands are out of productive use and considered contaminated, e.g., brownfields
  • 14% of East Chicago’s land-use is dedicated Residential - ~17% of these residential properties are apart of a superfund site.

via [ NWI Times ]

“Blast furnace restart could jump-start 750 jobs - MARKET DEMAND PROMPTS MITTAL TO FIRE UP INDIANA HARBOR WORKS NO. 4 FURNACE” by

Read more…

Thomas East Chicago, Northwest Indiana, View of Lake Michigan

The economic downturn has some benefits for fence-line industrial communities.

View Outside My Window

It is becoming clear that Gitte Laasby is one of the most important journalist in Northwest Indiana. Here again she writes on a subject I am acutely sensitive towards.

via [ Post-Tribune ] “Lake County pollution bad despite reduction” By Gitte Laasby

New toxic release data from EPA shows Lake County industries released the ninth-most pollution in the nation in 2008 — more than 31.5 million pounds.

The high ranking, released Monday, comes despite a 31.1 percent reduction in releases from Lake County industrial plants compared to 2007.

The data, self-reported by the industries to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory, also shows that two Lake County steel mills are among the nation’s 50 biggest polluters.

U.S. Steel Gary Works is No. 37 with about 12.6 million pounds. ArcelorMittal in East Chicago is No. 46 despite cutting its releases by more than half, from about 25.8 million pounds in 2007 to 11 million pounds in 2008.

By comparison, BP Whiting increased its releases 33.8 percent from nearly 529,000 pounds in 2007 to nearly 708,000 pounds in 2008.

Among the 650 chemicals included in the data are carcinogens and other toxic material that cause adverse health effects and potential environmental harm.

Not all toxic releases are harmful or bad. The numbers include toxic material emitted into the air, discharged into water and disposed of in underground injection wells, but also materials that are landfilled or recycled.

A Post-Tribune analysis of preliminary TRI data published in September concluded that Northwest Indiana industries had reduced their overall pollution by about 30 percent. The most significant reductions were at area steel mills.

At the time, Branch Chief of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management’s Office of Pollution Prevention Jennifer Schick said the reductions were likely a result of production cuts rather than regulatory requirements or voluntary reductions.

On Tuesday, IDEM spokeswoman Amy Hartsock stopped short of drawing such a conclusion.

“Because an analysis has not been done for the 2008 data for Northwest Indiana, in particular, it would be speculation on our part to attribute reductions to the economic downturn,” Hartsock said. “What we do know based on information available to us for the state is that industry is doing a better job reducing pollutants than what the decrease in economic activity would account for.”

Lake County polluters reduced their releases by 31.1 percent compared to 2007, Porter County polluters by 5.8 percent. Lake and Porter counties released 36.9 million pounds of toxics — 17.6 percent of the total 209.3 million pounds released by Indiana facilities.

Four of the 20 counties in the nation that released the most toxic material were in Indiana, according to EPA.

Thomas East Chicago, The Air I Breath

~17% of my neighbors live on contaminated land. ~17 East Chicago’s residential properties are part of a Superfund Site. After more than 20-years of knowledge of the real potential for contamination, and clearing the legal slate of PRPs (prior responsible parties) the site was placed on the National Priority List (NPL) in March 2009.

via [ Post-Tribune ] “EPA Testing Soil for Lead Contamination” By Gitte Laasby

EAST CHICAGO — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is collecting soil samples in East Chicago to find out whether residential yards are contaminated with lead.

The residences are located between East Chicago Avenue and 151st Street and between Aster and Parrish avenues near one of the most contaminated sites in the nation, the former U.S. Smelter and Lead Refinery Inc. site at 5300 Kennedy Ave.

The EPA began collecting samples from front and back yards Monday and will continue for about two weeks. The soil samples are free to residents and all work is done outside the homes.

The EPA held an informational session to explain the testing process and answer questions about the site Monday and will hold another one today.

EPA will also hold a meeting on Dec. 17, to update the community about sampling and clean-up plans. Representatives from EPA and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management will be available to answer questions.

The U.S. Smelter site was added to the EPA’s Superfund list in early September. The list contains the most toxic sites in the nation that pose a risk to health and the environment.

The site and residential properties north of it are contaminated with lead. The lead was most likely dispersed from long-removed smokestacks while the business operated between 1920 and 1985. The company recovered lead from car batteries.

In July 2008, EPA removed lead-contaminated soil from 15 homes near the site. Exposure to high levels of lead can cause developmental problems and lower intelligence in young children. Lead exposure can also increase blood pressure in middle-aged men, according to IDEM.

Thomas East Chicago, The Land I Use

via [ NWI Times ] “Dredging stirs airborne PCBs?”

SCIENTISTS: E.C. YOUTHS ALREADY HAVE HIGHER LEVELS OF POLLUTANT THAN IOWA SAMPLE

By Steve Zabroski

EAST CHICAGO | Children here already have significant amounts of polychlorinated biphenyls — PCBs — in their bodies, and researchers want to find out just how much more will accumulate when the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal is dredged.

Scientists with four major universities have been measuring concentrations of the toxic and carcinogenic chemical in the blood of participating West Side Junior High School students and their mothers since 2006 in anticipation of the dredging, now scheduled to begin in 2011.

“We’re here because of the dredging,” said David Osterberg, a researcher with the University of Iowa. “There are very high levels of PCBs in the canal, and when they are dredged, there will be very high levels in the disposal facility.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to remove some 4.6 million cubic yards of polluted sediment from the harbor and canal, and permanently store the material on a 275-acre former refinery site just 800 yards from Central High School and West Side Junior High.

Banned in the United States since 1977, PCBs typically enter the body by eating fish caught in contaminated waterways.

But the man-made substance also shows up in the bodies of those who never eat fish, and researchers think that the chemical, which readily evaporates when exposed to the air, could be ingested simply by breathing.

For four years, scientists have been collecting air samples taken in the students’ homes, at Central High and along the canal for comparison with a similarly sized community in eastern Iowa that has no known sources of PCBs.

Dubbed AESOP — Airborne Exposure to Semi-volatile Organic Pollutants — the study is sponsored by the National Institute of Environmental Health Science and combines resources of the University of Iowa, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Kentucky.

“People in East Chicago are very interested in what we’re doing,” said Jeanne DeWall, study coordinator. “They’re concerned about the dredging.”

Though Osterberg said the data from the 112 mothers and children participating in East Chicago are “very preliminary,” the amount of PCBs in the blood of the comparison group in Iowa appears lower than in the city.

“Generally, we’re seeing what we expected,” Osterberg said. “Mothers in East Chicago have higher blood concentrations of PCBs than their children, and in some cases, a lot more.” The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has determined that exposure to PCBs can cause cancer of the liver and biliary tract, and the chemical has been linked to problems with motor skills, a suppressed immune system and a decrease in short-term memory in children.

“We expect that both airborne and blood levels of PCBs in East Chicago will be higher once the dredging starts,” Osterberg said.

In the meantime, researchers are continuing their efforts to educate the community about chemicals in the environment and their effects.

“We’ve taught more than 400 kids, starting with seventh-graders, about PCBs,” said Dr. Victoria Persky, an internist at UIC and community outreach leader for the study. “It’s been a rewarding four years.”

Osterberg said he’s confident the National Institute of Health will fund the research project for another five years, and plans to have more air monitors in place when the dredging actually begins.

Nancy Morales, a registered medical assistant and phlebotomist, said she’s getting ready to collect the air monitors and visit residents again for their end-of-year blood samples.

Thomas East Chicago, Environment, The Air I Breath

The Pollution that Pollution Creates.

It takes a village to damage a community, future generations and the environment. This is how it happens in Northwest Indiana.

via [ NWI Times ]

BP in Whiting has invested $100,000 in 2009 in the East Chicago Carnegie Arts Association to be used toward operating expenses. Show from left to right are Dave Ryan, executive director Lakeshore Chamber; Kathleen Oppolo, Carnegie Arts Association board member; East Chicago Mayor George Pabey; Lisa Woodruff Hedin, executive director Carnegie Arts Association; Tom Keilman, director of government and public affairs BP Products North America; Mike Ebert, co-chair Carnegie Arts Association; Lauren Bukovac, campaign coordinator Carnegie Arts Association

Thomas East Chicago, Energy, Environment, General Arts

A few moments ago I asked Al Gore, who was speaking on Chicago Public Radio’s Eight Forty-Eight program the following question.

(My question comes at 36:30)

I would like to thank the Vice President for all his work in global warming.

My question has to do with what we can do to support and redevelop our industrial fence-line communities where the negative impacts of industries have created the most severely unsustainable conditions?

I am speaking directly about what has been allowed to occur on the Southern Shores of Lake Michigan (the world’s greatest fresh water resource), in Northwest Indiana. Where BP, the second largest oil refinery in the country is located, along with ArcelorMittal the largest integrated steel mill and U.S. Steel.

The results of this kind of concentration of industry has created such a threatening environment, effecting the land we use, the air we breath and the water we drink and recreate in. Consequently, this is the location of the:

<Water>

• Indiana Harbor Shipping Canal, arguably the most polluted waterway in the country (the only waterway to fail every beneficial use).
• Joerse Beach, the most polluted beach in the Great Lakes and the third in the country

<Air>

• Lake County Indiana’s air-shed - ranking as the 7th most polluted county (of 3,100 counties) based on TRI.

<Land>

• ~17% of East Chicago’s residential properties are apart of a superfund site, having been build upon an old lead refinery.
• ~40% of the lands are considered to be brownfields, e.g., out of productive use and perceived to be contaminated.

Al Gore’s disappointing response highlights a serious perceptual divide.

Now that the environmental debate has been made a middle-class issue. Let’s desegregate Gore’s solution and begin to focus on the source of pollution and the mostly poor minority communities that carry the greatest burden of industrial productivity and receive the heaviest concentration of negative effects from these activities. Middle-class America is so worried in how industry has effected their quality of life, that they haven’t hesitated to acknowledge the devastating effects industry continues to have in the communities in which the industry resides.

150-years ago American’s recognized that it wasn’t a good thing to drink from the same waters in which you shit. So in 1856 Chicago broke ground on America’s first sewage system. Today the challenge is to separate industrial waste and pollutants from the the waters we drink.

Here’s a simple solution - Solve the environmental problems for fence-line industrial communities and you solve the problem for middle-class America and the causes of global warming.

Thomas East Chicago, Environment

As you can see I have been a skeptic of the EPA”s recent challenge to BP’s air permit.

<fb comment> a small victory. The EPA has order Indiana to rewrite the permit, essentially discrediting Indiana’s ability to manage their environmental resources. All I see this doing is fortifying a poorly written permit against future disputes. In the end BP is the beneficiary of the action</fb comment>

Noah Hall, author of the Great Lakes Law blog is beginning to clear me of my skepticism.

via [ Great Lakes Law ]

Tar sands oil gives coal some competition for the title of dirtiest fuel.  From mining to refining to burning, tar sands oil is an environmental disaster.  The Great Lakes is becoming a center for refining imported tar sands oil, which comes from western Canada.  As a result, refinery pollution is threatening our water and our communities.  BP’s Whiting Refinery on the shores of Lake Michigan in Indiana has become a focal point in the legal fight to stop tar sands pollution in the region.  Environmental groups scored a victory earlier this month when the EPA objected to an Indiana permit for air pollution from the refinery.  Meleah Geertsma, an attorney and public health expert with the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago, was involved in the fight against the air pollution from the tar sands refinery, and wrote this guest post on the victory and what it means in the fight against tar sands pollution in the Great Lakes.

On October 16, in a move that could significantly improve air quality for the Great Lakes region, the U.S. EPA sent a clear message to the oil industry that the federal agency is serious about air pollution from refining – especially the processing of dirty Canadian tar sands crude. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on that day issued an order objecting to a permit granted by Indiana to BP’s Whiting Refinery, located on the shores of Lake Michigan. At the heart of Administrator Jackson’s order is a concern that numerous potential sources of air pollution are going uncounted and uncontrolled. And that the industry is ignoring or downplaying the air pollution impacts of processing the much heavier, dirtier Canadian tar sands crude, a crude that contains high levels of sulfur and toxic metals.

The BP operating permit was issued to enable a significant increase in the processing of heavy tar sands crude at BP’s Whiting, Indiana facility. However, the permit allowed BP to expand without installing so-called “best available control technology,” on the premise that increases in air pollution from the expansion would be balanced by decreases in pollution from the existing refinery. Such a trade-off of increases and decreases is referred to in air permitting as “netting.”

In response, several environmental groups and individual citizens filed a petition with U.S. EPA, asking the agency to object due to BP’s and the agency’s failure to count numerous potential sources of increased air pollution. Among these sources are increased operations of certain equipment needed to process larger amounts of Canadian crude, as well as greater levels of sulfur and toxics in the crude itself.

Great Lakes Law: Environmental groups and EPA step up the fight against tar sands oil refinery pollution in the Great Lakes.

Thomas East Chicago, Environment, Tar Sands, The Air I Breath

I don’t think I’ve mentioned on this blog before how extraordinarily violent East Chicago is. I spoke to Nora Ferrer and her brother today. They lost their brother to gun violence 11-years ago. I am terribly sorry for their loss. Nora and other women including her mother have channelled their loss in an effort to help the community.

During the past two decades East Chicago has experienced between 15-to-32 murders a year. That is more than 200 murders in two decades in a city of 30,000 people. You do the math.

Several years ago I worked with At-Risk-Teens. To get to know them I decided I would video interview them individually. In the process of interviewing them I was shocked to discovered that each one of these kids had one or more family members murdered, some had actually seen them die.

More recently, my brother-in-law, who coaches basketball, had a player who was murdered on his way home from practice. This effected him and his players deeply as it did many other school kids. It turned out the murderer was the Chief of Police’s nephew.

A problem we face here when something as horrific as this occurs is the lack of grief counseling for those effected. When this occurred my wife contacted a counselor at the University of Chicago who organized a group of counselors to donate their time, but the East Chicago school district, and teacher’s Union would not allow them to come in and help. Consequently no one ever received the counseling they desperately needed. This is a problem that repeats itself 15-to-32 times a year.

You can only imagine what this level of chronic violence and grief without aid is doing to this community.

P.S. { lifted from a comment I made on Facebook }
“Last month I witnessed a 13 year-old neighbor girl get mugged in front of my house and I called 911 while following the muggers. 911 told me they wouldn’t send anyone and that I ought to stop following them. When I returned home an officer was talking with the girl. The officer never asked me for a statement. When I told him what just happened to me with the 911 operator, he responded “well, we only have four officers on the streets, and can’t cover everything.” At that moment Debbie Balonous (sp?) came up, knowing the girl - she was truly concerned, but when she saw I was involved and heard the answer I just got from the officer, she just backed away and left.

I’m beginning to feel there are too many people in this city with family members or friends who are involved in criminal activity and no one wants to stand up against friends and family.”

Thomas East Chicago

via [ Post-Tribune ] “Cancer-causing levels of pollution exceeded by U.S. Steel landfill” by Gitte Laasby

GARY — Over the last two months, U.S. Steel has exceeded levels of possible cancer-causing air pollution near its hazardous waste landfill several times.

Its benzene and naphthalene repeatedly exceeded notification levels since mid-August at the landfill, which is also known as the Corrective Action Management Unit or CAMU.

“There may be eight exceedances or so in the past two months,” acknowledged Rick Menozzi, director of environmental remediation at U.S. Steel Gary Works at a citizens meeting this week.

“We did have an exceedance in residential monitoring along Ellsworth Street. All the others were what the recordings were at the CAMU.”

The CAMU is located east of Bridge Street and north of Interstate 90, across the Grand Calumet River from a residential neighborhood.

Monitoring stations are set up near the CAMU and in the neighborhood. The CAMU contains dredged sediment from the river.

In mid-October, the company measured high levels of benzene.

At one point, naphthalene levels were nearly double the notification level, but pollution remained well below action levels.

Company officials did not have an explanation for the exceedances, but said a possible cause could be that standing water makes materials in the CAMU settle and collapse.

“When a collapse occurs, there is a release of (volatile organic compounds) in particular. The naphthalene is being released as this material collapses. The monitoring station is right there where the collapsing is occurring,” Menozzi said.

At times, the company has applied powder-activated carbon to reduce emissions.

U.S. Steel recently asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for permission to landfill another 90,000 to 135,000 cubic yards of polluted sludge from a cleanup of two lagoons at the mill.

To do so, the company has submitted documents to prove to the EPA that the material is similar and compatible with the waste already in the landfill and that the landfill could handle it.

Company officials said a contractor visited the site this week to possibly bid on seeding the top of the CAMU to reduce emissions and water in the CAMU.

But cooling weather may not allow seeding right now, Menozzi said.

Thomas East Chicago, The Air I Breath