By Gitte Laasby, Post-Tribune staff writer
About 100 people showed up for a two-hour public meeting in Gary about U.S. Steel Corp.'s draft wastewater permit Wednesday night.
Several asked questions about the permitting process and how the pollutant limits in the permit were determined.
Many also took the opportunity to express their disapproval and distrust of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management after the agency allowed BP Whiting to increase its discharges to Lake Michigan.
"There are people who are supposed to look out for the betterment, the human interest of everybody and we get kicked in the butt," Gary City Councilwoman Paula Peeples told IDEM moderator and assistant commissioner Bruno Pigott early in the two-hour meeting.
"There's actually not much (IDEM permit writer) Stan (Rigney) can say that's going to change everybody's minds. He can give us all the data but that's not going to change how we feel."
Despite the tough crowd, Pigott and other IDEM representatives patiently answered questions about why the agency hasn't been stricter about setting pollutant limits.
Some attendees brought up the fact that U.S. Steel's previous permit expired in 1999. The permit was issued in 1994 and has been administratively extended. That means the company is allowed to continue to discharge what the old permit allows.
IDEM is required to renew permits every five years to reflect more recent, and usually stricter, limits for pollutants. State Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, asked why it wasn't renewed earlier.
"I don't have a good excuse. It's been too long," Pigott admitted.
Kim Ferraro, attorney from the Hoosier Environmental Council, pointed out that IDEM had years to review the permit and asked for additional time to prepare comments to the permit. The deadline is set for Aug. 11.
Pigott asked attendees to make the request in writing and said he would confer with Commissioner Thomas Easterly about an extension of the comment period and possibly another public meeting.
Meanwhile, Munster resident Karen Kroczek has invited attendees to a grassroots meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 7, in the auditorium of the DuBois Branch, 1835 Broadway in Gary. She hopes to get concerned residents together to find out how to respond to IDEM.
People can e-mail comments to IDEM's Rigney at srigney@idem.in.gov.