An orange substance coming from one of the outfalls at U.S. Steel's facility in Portage.
(Courtesy of Collin Czilli)
An unknown orange substance from the U.S. Steel plant in Portage was found leaking into a Lake Michigan tributary on Sunday evening. State and federal environmental agencies are working with U.S. Steel to investigate the cause of the leak and find out if it's harmful.
This comes just weeks after U.S. Steel agreed to pay for a massive chemical spill at the plant four years ago.
Barbara Lusco is the harbor master for the Sammie L. Maletta Public Marina. She said over the course of a few hours, she watched the leak cover Burns Waterway.
"It was heading out onto Lake Michigan and it was slowly traveling southbound on Burns Waterway. It was a rusty, kind of a thick substance," Lusco said.
Lusco said she can’t see the leak at the marina anymore, but the marina has closed its ramp to protect the public. She said spills on Lake Michigan affect the public's enjoyment of the marina all too often.
In 2017, U.S. Steel’s Portage facility spilled 300 pounds of the cancer-causing chemical hexavalent chromium into the Burns Waterway. Since then, the plant has had at least seven other water violations. Earlier this month the company agreed to pay more than $1 million for the 2017 spill.
U.S. Steel will also have to spend another $600,000 over the next three years testing Lake Michigan waterways for pollution.
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Portage City Council President Collin Czilli said any leak or spill along the lake threatens residents’ drinking water and their livelihoods.
“It’s very frustrating that this continually happens and our hands as a city are tied," he said.
Czilli said only the Environmental Protection Agency and Indiana Department of Environmental Management can make sure U.S. Steel complies with its permit. That is, unless the city decides to take the company to court like the city of Chicago and the Surfrider Foundation did.
A spokesperson for U.S. Steel released the following email statement:
“U. S. Steel shut down operations at its Midwest Plant as a precaution after experiencing an upset condition with the finishing line wastewater treatment plant. The plant operations will remain down until the condition is stabilized. This upset is currently believed to be the cause of the discolored water seen coming from one of our outfalls. Early indications show higher than normal suspended solids in the water, and we are conducting additional sampling and an investigation to determine the cause. U. S. Steel made all appropriate notifications to regulatory agencies and some officials have been onsite, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the U.S. Coast Guard, and Porter County. We will continue to work with regulators and the community and will provide additional updates as they become available.”
The EPA and IDEM declined to be interviewed, but said they’re waiting on the results of water tests and that the investigation into this weekend’s leak is ongoing. IDEM staff said they haven’t seen any dead fish or other harm to wildlife yet.
Indiana Environmental reporting is supported by the Environmental Resilience Institute, an Indiana University Grand Challenge project developing Indiana-specific projections and informed responses to problems of environmental change.
