On behalf of
Indiana Dunes National Park, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA)
is challenging a proposed settlement agreement between the federal
government, the State of Indiana, and U.S. Steel Corporation regarding the
steelmaker’s repeated violations of the Clean Water Act.
The NPCA,
represented by the Earthrise Law Center, filed an amicus curiae brief
on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.
In that brief NPCA
urges the court to reject the proposed settlement “because it does not
acknowledge the heightened public interest in protecting Indiana Dunes
National Park, it fails to recover adequate past and future potential
natural resource damages to the park, and because the low civil penalty will
not serve as a deterrent for future violations,” according to a statement
released by the NPCA.
In April 2017, U.S.
Steel spilled approximately 300 pounds of highly-toxic hexavalent
chromium--an amount nearly 600 times the daily allowable limit for public
health safety, NPCA said--into the Burns Waterway adjacent to Indiana Dunes
National Park, flowing directly into Lake Michigan. That spill forced the
closure of public beaches and water intakes and triggered health warnings
across the region, closing more than five miles of the 15-mile beach
shoreline inside Indiana Dunes National Park.
“The proposed
settlement reached between U.S. federal agencies, the State of Indiana, and
U.S. Steel in response to the legal challenge does not go far enough,” the
NPCA said, in particular in light of U.S. Steel’s continued violations since
the chromium spill in 2017. “Another violation in November 2018 caused the
National Park Service to close portions of their beaches due to an unknown
foamy discharge coming from the same polluted area outside the U.S. Steel
facility. And a chromium violation this past October led to the partial
closure of the U.S. Steel plant.”
Meanwhile, the NPCA
said, “Indiana Dunes National Park continues to experience record visitation
with nearly two million visitors annually, pumping $350 million back into
the surrounding communities each year.”
“U.S. Steel must be
held accountable for its continued pollution, poisoning waterways for
millions of people, and ignoring the impacts to Indiana Dunes National Park
and its more than two million annual visitors, and the wildlife and beach
shoreline that remains a top attraction for the region,” said Colin Deverell,
Midwest program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association. “At
a time when the spotlight remains on U.S. Steel to ensure it adheres to
federal Clean Water Act laws, U.S. Steel continually demonstrates its
disregard for human health and the neighboring national park with seven
additional industrial discharges into park waters.”
“The lack of
enforcement opens the door for future illegal discharges, which we’ve
already seen, resulting in more beach closures and potential harm to visitor
health and wildlife,” Deverell added. “The proposed agreement fails to hold
U.S. Steel accountable and must require them to report on substantial
improvements to operations, water testing, and timeliness for alerting the
public and officials about health emergencies.”
“When people visit
our national parks, they expect to experience clean air and water,
awe-inspiring views, diverse wildlife and rare plants,” Deverell said.
“Indiana Dunes is recognized as one of the most biodiverse among all of our
more than 400 parks across the National Park system, known for its sand
dunes, swamps, bogs, marshes and prairies.”
“From Indiana Dunes
to the Everglades to the Grand Canyon, our national parks are held to a
higher standard to keep the very values for which they were created
protected,” Deverell concluded. “It is a great responsibility to have a
national park in our communities and we must do all we can to protect and
preserve them for generations to come. The court must reject this settlement
and hold this polluter accountable to protect human health, park resources
and to deter future violations.”