The bad news for Porter County is that the total amount of chemical pollution released by its industries in 2007 increased by 1.5 percent, to 2,921,221 pounds from 2,877,478 pounds in 2006.

The good news is that Porter County’s industries released far less chemicals than Lake County’s industries did in 2007 and that since 2000 Porter County’s industries have reduced chemical pollution by nearly 40 percent.

Those are some of the highlights of the toxic release data compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and made public on Thursday.

Of the 228.9 million pounds of chemical pollution released statewide in Indiana in 2007, Porter County was responsible for only 1.3 percent of the total. Lake County, in contrast, released 49,565,197 pounds in the same year, accounting for 22 percent of the total.

Of all 2,406 counties in the U.S., in 2007 Lake County was the sixth most polluting county, according to EPA, though well behind Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska, which released fully 533,428,820 pounds of chemical pollution, nearly 11 times more than Lake County did.

Porter County, on the other hand, was the 274th most polluting county in 2007.

Lake County, moreover, is trending upward in its release of chemical pollution, while Porter County is trending downward.

In 2000, according to EPA, Lake County was the 45th most polluting county in the U.S., with 22,505,933 pounds of chemical pollution released, or less than half the amount released in 2007.

Also in 2000, however, Porter County was the 213th most polluting county in the U.S., with 4,632,710 pounds of chemical pollution released, or fully 59 percent more than the amount released in 2007.

*ArcelorMittal’s Burns Harbor facility released 1,566,569 pounds of chemical pollution in 2007, or 54 percent of the total in Porter County. That figure represents an increase of 6.7 percent over the chemical pollution released by the plant in 2006.

*NIPSCO’s Bailly Generating Station released 454,730 pounds of chemical pollution in 2007, or 16 percent of the total in Porter County. That figure represents an increase of 27 percent over the chemical pollution released by the facility in 2006.

*U.S. Steel’s Gary Works released 12,051,949 pounds of chemical pollution in 2007, or 24 percent of the total in Lake County. That figure represents a decrease of 4.5 percent from the chemical pollution released by the plant in 2006.

*ArcelorSteel’s East Chicago facilities released a total of 33,172,880 pounds of chemical pollution in 2007, or 67 percent of the total in Lake County. That figure represents a decrease of 4.4 percent from the chemical pollution released by those facilities in 2006.

Although the total statewide release of chemical pollution decreased in 2007, Indiana has the regrettable distinction of going from the fourth most polluting state in the Union in the previous year to the third most polluting, behind Alaska and Ohio:

*Alaska: 584.7 million pounds in 2007, down from 667.6 million pounds in 2006, a decrease of 12 percent.

*Ohio: 274.3 million pounds in 2007, down from 290.9 million pounds in 2006, a decrease of 6 percent.

*Indiana: 228.9 million pounds in 2007, down from 237.1 million pounds in 2006, a decrease of 3 percent.

*Texas, which had been third on the list in 2006 with 239.9 million pounds, took the fourth spot behind Indiana in 2007 with 222.5 million pounds, a decrease of 6 percent.

“We have spent the last four years encouraging businesses to be cleaner, showing them how this is not only good for the environment but also good for them financially,” said Thomas Easterly, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management in a statement released on Thursday. “The less pollution they create, the less disposal and treatment costs they incur. We’re happy to see from the (toxic release inventory) report that this is paying off for many Hoosier companies and our environment.”