The United States Environmental Protection Agency says there is no significant discharge of a potentially cancer-causing chemical in the waters around U.S. Steel following last week’s wastewater spill at the company’s Midwest plant, according to an article from U.S. News & World Report. About 200 water samples from Lake Michigan and one of its tributaries reportedly show no substantial trace of hexavalent chromium from the Portage, Indiana plant, 30 miles east of Chicago.
According to the article, an expansion joint failed in a pipe allowing wastewater to flow into the wrong treatment plant at the Portage complex and eventually into Burns Waterway about 100 yards from Lake Michigan. The Chicago Department of Water Management reportedly says its own water sample taken from Lake Michigan shows a higher level of hexavalent chromium than the EPA’s, but it is still just a fraction of the EPA’s drinking water standard of 100 parts per billion for all forms of chromium. The 2000 film “Erin Brokovich” was based on a California case involving a utility disposing of water laced with hexavalent chromium in unlined ponds.
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