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Steel News December 14, 2018 10:30:38 AM

U.S. Steel Portage Plant Cited for Violation of Discharge Permit

Paul Ploumis
ScrapMonster Author
On November 28th, the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Park officials spotted a white foamy discharge from the plant heading out to Lake Michigan.

U.S. Steel Portage Plant Cited for Violation of Discharge Permit

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The discharge of foamy substance into Burns Waterway in end-November this year from U.S. Steel’s Midwest steel plant in Portage is in violation of its discharge permit, concluded Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM). The state agency, through a letter to U.S. Steel’s compliance manager, informed that the discharge of the foamy substance is in violation of Part I.B. of the NPDES permit.

On November 28th, the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Park officials spotted a white foamy discharge from the plant heading out to Lake Michigan. Following this, Portage Lakefront, Riverwalk and the beach at Ogden Dunes were temporarily closed. A joint inspection was conducted by the company and the IDEM staff.

Meantime, U.S. Steel, which had analyzed the samples taken from the site at an outside lab, announced that the samples were found harmless and within normal permitting limits. Furthermore, it has rectified the issue without any delay, it said. The report submitted to IDEM noted that foam discharge occurred due to insufficient addition of defoamer and that it was not on account of any pollutant.

U.S. Steel now has 30 days from the date of receipt of the letter to submit a detailed response outlining the correction measures taken to address the concerns.

This is not the first discharge incident at the facility. In April last year, the plant was cited for discharge of nearly 300 pounds of hexavalent chromium into the Burns Waterway. Also, an incident of chromium spill was reported in October 2017 as well.

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