Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, or IDEM, announced a $585,000 settlement with Lakeshore Railcar & Tanker Services LLC, a railcar cleaning and servicing facility in East Chicago, Indiana, for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act.
EPA and IDEM alleged that Lakeshore Railcar failed to comply with the discharge limitations and monitoring requirements of both its industrial wastewater discharge permit and the EPA-approved pretreatment program for the city. Until recently, Lakeshore Railcar was an industrial user of the publicly owned wastewater treatment plant in East Chicago. As an industrial user, the company was required to pretreat its wastewater to reduce pollutants—including cyanide—below certain limits prior to discharging the wastewater to the public sewer system. Between April 2017 and May 2023, Lakeshore violated the discharge limit for cyanide 31 times. Lakeshore Railcar also failed to follow EPA-approved methods for measuring the amount of cyanide in its wastewater discharge. Lakeshore Railcar’s violations posed a potential risk to the Grand Calumet River, as well as Lake Michigan seven miles downstream.
Prior to signing the settlement, Lakeshore Railcar stopped generating and discharging industrial wastewater to the East Chicago plant and dismantled its wastewater pretreatment operation. The settlement requires Lakeshore Railcar to pay a $585,000 penalty to the federal and state governments to resolve the alleged violations.
For more information on the Clean Water Act, click here.
from EPA News Releases https://ift.tt/QoLkOj6