Post-Tribune
We understand that steel making is a dirty business, as is any that processes raw material from this Earth. Steel gets its start with iron ore, coke and limestone. The addition of heat and other minerals leads to a finished product. Along the way, a mill needs to discard impurities and other wastes.
We understand that steel making took root in Northwest Indiana long before environmental regulations, long before anyone thought air or water needed protection. For generations, people looked at soot in the air and rivers of toxic stews as the price of industrial might. A small price, they would say, for jobs that feed families.
We understand that environmental protection has been playing catch-up ever since. Turning a dirty business into a clean one, an environmentally conscientious one, takes time and money. It also takes rules and agencies that enforce the rules. And, it takes industry and regulators working together to find solutions that keep the environmental protection process moving forward.
What we don't understand is the logic behind the Indiana Department of Environmental Management drafting a permit that would allow U.S. Steel to continue discharging an average of 2,802 pounds of oil and grease per day into the east branch of the Grand Calumet River -- the same branch U.S. Steel is trying to clean up on orders of the U.S. Department of Justice.
We don't understand why regulators OK'd this oil and grease disposal plan in the first place and don't understand why it would be allowed to continue. Let's move the Grand Cal clean-up process forward and find another alternative for grease and oil disposal.
The 800,000 cubic yards of harmful sediment U.S. Steel has removed from the river is a good start, but
the river won't see much improvement with a continued daily dose of oil and grease.