BURNS HARBOR -- For the first time in five months, state officials are breaking their silence about waste piles dumped at ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor named after the state's top environmental official.
In November, the Post-Tribune broke the story about the waste, which ArcelorMittal officials have named "Easterly's Pile" after Indiana Department of Environmental Management Commissioner Tom Easterly. He was the top environmental official at ArcelorMittal's predecessor, Bethlehem Steel, from 1994 to 2000.
A large pile (top) sits at the edge of ArcelorMittal's property in Burns Harbor. ArcelorMittal officials admitted late last week that similar activity has been taking place at the site since the early 1980s. (Post-Tribune file)
Easterly has declined to comment.
Gov. Mitch Daniels revealed Friday he has inquired about the waste.
"I've been asking a lot of questions and I'm trying to make certain this thing is appropriate. I know we've displeased you guys mightily on some of these things," he told the Post-Tribune editorial board.
Also Friday, IDEM officials told the Post-Tribune that the waste piles near Lake Michigan existed long before Easterly's tenure at Bethlehem Steel.
"They've been conducting similar activity in this area since the early 1980s, prior to Tom Easterly's arrival at the Burns Harbor facility in September 1994," IDEM spokeswoman Amy Hartsock said in an e-mail to the Post-Tribune.
It's the first time IDEM officials made any indication about whether Easterly had a connection to the waste.
Bethlehem Steel recycled various wastes in its sinter plant in the mid-1980s. But under Easterly's watch, the company reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1999 that although it had stopped recycling 14 years earlier, it still had treatment plant sludge and other waste sitting in the open.
In its latest inspection report, IDEM indicated it is not taking enforcement action against ArcelorMittal because the company has periodically recycled some waste and has applied for a landfill permit to dispose of the waste. The company is allowed to stockpile waste for recycling for up to six months.
It isn't clear exactly how much of the waste in Easterly's pile in the northeast corner of the property is recycled.
IDEM said company records indicate all basic oxygen furnace sludge is recycled, but the sinter plant has been shut down since December.
Critics, including Valparaiso lawyer Kim Ferraro of the Legal Environmental Aid Foundation of Indiana, have repeatedly asked for an explanation of Easterly's involvement and called on IDEM to sample and test the waste to see how toxic it is rather than relying on test results that Bethlehem Steel submitted to the EPA in 1999. At the time, EPA said the waste met screening standards and that no further action was necessary. ArcelorMittal has been, and is still, adding more waste.
IDEM's Hartsock said the company uses a depressed 27-acre area in the northeast, known as the basic oxygen farm, to mix and dry waste materials to be recycled in the sinter plant. The waste is pushed up the sides of the depression and piled along the rim until transported to the sinter plant.
"Based on information we have reviewed to date, and observations made by staff during on-site inspections, there is no indication that any of these materials show characteristics of hazardous waste," IDEM's Hartsock said in an e-mail.
Even if the waste were hazardous, it would be exempt from federal hazardous waste regulation because it comes from certain processes involving ores, IDEM said. The law was intended to combat open dumping while encouraging recycling.
"It doesn't diminish the fact that it's been sitting there for more than six months and has not been recycled. Nothing they say is going to change that," Ferraro said. "The big deal is pretty obvious. With respect to ... Easterly's Pile next to Lake Michigan, it'd be important regardless of these intricate, complicated regulations, that the lake is being protected. At some point, could we just do the right thing and get an understanding of what's out there? Test the ground, test the water, test the waste and do the right thing because this is next to Lake Michigan."
Asked if IDEM should have handled the matter differently, Gov. Daniels answered hesitantly.
"I don't know, honestly. I'm trying to learn more about this," he said. "Frankly, it's no one ... EPA has not recognized any issue out there as far as I know."
EPA mainly has jurisdiction over hazardous waste. Unless the waste is open dumped, other kinds of waste are the state's responsibility.