Three Northwest Indiana Democratic senators criticized proposed rollbacks by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which could delay coal ash cleanup and loosen restrictions on toxic pollutants in the area.
State Senators Rodney Pol, D-Chesterton, Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, and Mark Spencer, D-Gary, issued a joint statement Wednesday, calling out EPA rollbacks.
“Week after week, new reports confirm what Northwest Indiana residents already know: our communities are carrying the burden of toxic pollution and regulatory rollbacks that put corporate profits ahead of public health,” the joint statement said. “Our region is home to both natural beauty and some of the nation’s most harmful pollutants, and when the federal government weakens EPA standards, Hoosiers pay the price.”
The EPA press office, on Tuesday, was unable to immediately comment on the senators’ concerns.
According to U.S. News and World Report, Indiana ranks 50th nationwide for environmental quality.
Pol, Randolph and Spencer called out EPA’s proposed changes to its coal ash rules, which would extend compliance deadlines for monitoring and cleaning up the coal byproduct. If the compliance deadlines are extended, coal plant owners could stall clean up past 2030.
In Northwest Indiana, the Town of Pines has been contaminated by coal ash from the nearby Yard 520 landfill, which held more than one million tons of coal ash from NIPSCO’s Michigan City Generating Station.
“NIPSCO is committed to following the direction of the U.S. EPA to ensure the Town of Pines remediation work is conducted properly so that human health and the environment are protected,” NIPSCO Communications Manager Jessica Cantarelli said in a previous statement.
The senators claim that Town of Pines residents face a cancer risk from coal ash contamination that’s estimated to be 35 times higher than previously reported, according to the news release.
Ashley Williams, executive director of Just Transition Northwest Indiana, said in a statement that her organization supports the senators’ opposition. Williams, in her statement, implores the EPA to help protect public health, water and the future.
“Cleanup is already a decade overdue,” Williams said in her statement. “Industry’s time is up. Every year of delay means more contamination in our drinking water, illness in our families, and damage to the ecosystems we rely on in Northwest Indiana and beyond.”
Pol, Randolph and Spencer also referenced a recent Environmental Integrity Project report that includes Northwest Indiana steel plants as some that include potentially dangerous levels of toxic pollutants after President Donald Trump’s administration proposal to delay or eliminate 2024 hazardous air pollution control standards.
Top pollutants reported at facilities include chromium compounds, benzene, polycyclic aromatic compounds, cadmium compounds, nickel compounds, arsenic compounds, quinoline, manganese compounds, lead compounds and naphthalene, according to the study. The emissions were self-reported by steel companies in 2023, according to the study, which claims actual emissions can be underestimated.
In 2023, 20 steel mills and coke plants nationwide emitted nearly 2.4 million pounds of air toxics, 289,772 tons of criteria air pollutants and 43.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, according to the study.
“Our workers are the backbone of this region,” the senators’ statement said. “We need to be sure that when these people go to work in the morning, support their families and strengthen our economy, we are doing all we can to prioritize their health and wellbeing.”
A U.S. Steel spokesperson responded to the senators’ concerns in a statement, saying the EPA has not rolled back proposed iron and coke regulations but stopped adoption of proposed rules that “were not grounded in neither sound science nor law.”
“The EPA itself determined that existing rules for integrated iron and steelmaking facilities are protective of human health and the environment with an ample margin of safety,” the steel company’s statement said. “U. S. Steel’s integrated steelmaking facilities in Gary and the Mon Valley have a compliance rate exceeding 99%. Our workers prioritize safety and a commitment to environmental excellence in every community in which we operate, and that includes the more than 3,400 employees at Gary Works.”
In a Tuesday statement, Dorreen Carey, president of Gary Advocates for Responsible Development, said the group commends the Northwest Indiana senators for their urgency to protect Northwest Indiana’s health and environment.
“Gary and surrounding (Northwest) Indiana communities have suffered from decades-long and ongoing exposure to hazardous waste facilities and toxic and hazardous air pollution,” Carey said in her statement. “We need improvements and enforcement of environmental protections, not rollbacks. If EPA steps down, then Indiana must step up. … it is critical that the State of Indiana and the General Assembly prepare to act immediately to take on the responsibility of upgrading and enforcing environmental laws and regulations protecting Hoosier health and environment.”
In their Tuesday news release, Pol, Randolph and Spencer all promised to stand their ground and protect their constituents.
“Our constituents depend on us to fight for strong regulations that safeguard their health,” the joint statement said. “We are committed to fighting for legislation that will put our communities, environment and future first.”
