Documents: US Steel sought to keep chemical spill secret
Source: Associated Press
Updated 4:47 pm, Wednesday, November 15, 2017
PORTAGE, Ind. (AP) — Environmentalists are questioning why the public wasn't notified about an October chemical spill into a Lake Michigan tributary that U.S. Steel asked Indiana regulators to keep confidential.
Documents released by the University of Chicago's Abrams Environmental Law Clinic show that U.S. Steel's plant in Portage, Indiana, released 56.7 pounds (25.7 kilograms) of chromium on Oct. 25 after a wastewater treatment system malfunction. That's nearly double what the plant is permitted to release of the potentially cancer-causing chemical over 24 hours.
A company official wrote to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management on Oct. 31 asking that its submission about the release "be afforded confidential treatment under all applicable statutes."
Law students at the University of Chicago obtained the letter while tracking pollution violations at U.S. Steel and other factories along Lake Michigan as they prepare a planned lawsuit accusing the Pittsburgh-based company of repeatedly violating the federal Clean Water Act since 2011.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Documents-US-Steel-sought-to-keep-chemical-spill-12359468.php
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