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Sunday, November 15, 2009
Environment - Gary Post-Tribune alleges steel company gets special treatment because of IDEM commissioner
"Fate of 'Easterly's pile' at ArcelorMittal remains unknown" is the headline to this story by Gitte Laasby of the Gary Post-Tribune, the first of two parts. The lengthy story begins:
The heaping mounds of metallic-gray, lumpy steelmaking waste and rusty metal pieces tower up to 35 feet in the air, spread across a 33-acre sandy area in the northeast corner of ArcelorMittal's Burns Harbor property.Parts of the massive, dirty heaps have sat directly on the ground for up to 24 years, exposed to the elements with no protection of air, soil or the groundwater that flows north to Lake Michigan just a foot below. The waste contains toxics like lead, chromium, cadmium, silver and nickel in concentrations high enough to require disposal in a landfill.
Hidden behind a row of trees 200 feet from the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and the waters of Lake Michigan, the waste doesn't attract much attention. Even at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, managers have turned a blind eye -- perhaps because ArcelorMittal representatives say the piles have a connection to the man in charge of IDEM.
"They said, 'We call this "Easterly's pile" because he's the one who started it.' And it's never stopped growing," said a confidential source within IDEM.
The name of the piles refers to IDEM Commissioner Tom Easterly, the state's highest environmental official. From 1994 to 2000, he was the top environmental manager at one of ArcelorMittal's predecessors, Bethlehem Steel Corp.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 15, 2009 11:26 AM
Posted to Environment