Gary Works is an extensive steelmaking complex that sits on approximately 3,000 acres along the south shore of Lake Michigan just 15 miles southeast of Chicago. It is known as the number one polluter in the Lake Michigan basin and the third largest throughout all of the Great Lakes. In fact, U.S. Steel reported dumping more than 1.7 million pounds of pollution into the Grand Calumet in 2005, the last year for which figures are available.

Federal regulators sent Indiana environmental officials back to the drawing board to make sure Gary Works, U. S. Steel Corp’s largest manufacturing plant, reduces the amount of heavy metals and other toxic chemicals that flow directly into a Lake Michigan tributary. As it turns out, Gary Works is one of the largest polluters in the Great Lakes basin, which makes the company an extremely important environmental factor.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) blocked Gary Works’ proposal for a new water permit for its massive steel mill. This new permit would scrap, relax or omit the limits on the pollution that the U.S. Steel mill dumps into the Grand Calumet River. This is especially important because the Grand Calumet empties into Lake Michigan transmitting pollutants directly into the lake.

The EPA blocked the permit issued by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management in a letter dated October 1. The letter informed Indiana regulators that the EPA will not allow any new permit for Gary Works until significant pollution problems are remedied. As stated in the Clean Water Act, because the USEPA has authority over state environmental regulators, Indiana’s hands are tied.

The EPA’s letter rebuked the Indiana Department of Environmental Management for giving U.S. Steel five years to limit several extremely toxic and potentially deadly pollutants, including mercury, lead, cyanide, ammonia as well as a known cancer-causing chemical – benzo(a)pyrene.

The EPA also condemned Indiana for failing to impose more rigorous environmental pollution standards that would help clean up the Grand Calumet River. Hoosiers, especially those living around Lake Michigan or near the river itself, know that Grand Calumet is one of the most contaminated waterways in the Great Lakes region.

As written in federal law, states are required to renew water permits every five years in order to meet the Clean Water Act’s goal of limiting and eliminating pollution. However, Indiana has not reissued a water permit for U.S. Steel’s Gary Works since 1994.

Indiana officials now insist that this new proposed permit will do more to protect the environment than the old documents did. While officials are not answering many questions, they have promised that they will not finalize the permit until public concerns regarding Gary Works’ pollution problems are addressed.

In a document previously posted on the Internet, Indiana regulators stated they had removed some of the more stringent pollution limits from the old U.S. Steel permit because they did not believe the mill was that likely to exceed these limits in the future.

Environmental advocates, including the City of Chicago, dispute this logic. They say that having a lack of specific limits only clears the way for U.S. Steel to dump unlimited amounts of dangerous and potentially deadly pollutants, including oil and grease, lead, arsenic, benzene, fluoride and nitrates, directly into the water. This is the same water that will eventually end up in the drinking water system of countless people.

Critics of U.S. Steel’s Gary Works also remember that this mill has frequently has been cited for violating the Clean Water Act. Just one example – As part of a legal settlement with the EPA and United States Justice Department, U.S. Steel is attempting to dredge millions of cubic yards of highly contaminated sediment from the Grand Calumet River because of years of past environmental abuse and irresponsibility.

This latest fight involving a well-known Lake Michigan polluter comes just three months after Indiana regulators gave a BP refinery, in nearby Whiting, permission to significantly increase the amount of pollution it dumps into the lake. This is huge considering Lake Michigan is THE source of drinking water for Chicago and numerous other communities.

As a result of widespread public protest and even threats of legal action, BP later decided to step back and even promised to meet the more stringent pollution limits as stated in its old water permit.

U.S. STEEL Corp.
CHEMICALS RELEASED INTO the Grand Calumet/Lake Michigan – 2005
 

At the junction of the Mantaro and Yauli rivers in Peru, over 12,000 feet up in the Andes, is a small city of about 35,000 people. It is a community built on the mineral wealth of the mountains and exists only to serve the mines and the smelting company that processes the ore. In 1922 the Cerro de Pasco Corporation, A US-owned company with operations in South America, built a smelting plant in La Oroya, Peru. It was part of the expansion of North American and European corporate expansion into the resource-rich continent. A town grew up around the industrial complex.

The plant has changed hands many times over the years, including being owned by the Peruvian government from 1974 until 1997, when it was privatized and purchased by the Doe Run company of Missouri.

The plant gives off a list of toxins that includes high levels of lead, arsenic, cadmium, and zinc. A 1999 study of school children in La Oroya found that 99 percent of them were suffering from lead poisoning and 20 percent were so contaminated that they should have been hospitalized. They couldn’t be hospitalized because the facilities do not exist to treat such a large portion of the population, unfortunately.

Doe Run has taken some measures, though they are largely insufficient and seem more related to public relations than improving the lives of residents. Children under six years of age and having more than 45 micrograms of lead per decilitre of blood are bused to Casaracra, a 30 minute bus ride away, for eight hours a day. The World Health Organisation limit for lead is 10 micrograms per decilitre of blood, so to qualify the children have be 4.5 times the acceptable limit. Being removed from the environment for eight hours a day may reduce exposure somewhat, but the children still spend two thirds of their lives surrounded by emissions known to be toxic. The program also applies only to those six and under, leaving school-aged children exposed to the toxins 24 hours a day.

“Exposure to lead is more dangerous for young and unborn children. Unborn children can be exposed to lead through their mothers. Harmful effects include premature births, smaller babies, decreased mental ability in the infant, learning difficulties, and reduced growth in young children. These effects are more common if the mother or baby was exposed to high Center for Disease Control

Other pollutants, most notably cadmium, arsenic and sulphur dioxide, are also well above the acceptable limits set by the WHO. Children are not only more susceptible to the effects of exposure, but more likely to be exposed because they play in the dust and tend to put contaminated objects, such as toys, in their mouths.

As part of the privatization process, Doe Run was supposed to reduce toxic emissions and clean up the facility. In May 2006 Doe Run received its fourth extension to reduce toxic emissions and now has until 2009 to meet its targets. Given the lackadaisical attitude the company has exhibited so far, it is unlikely that it will do so without some sort of outside intervention.

Photo credit: Matthew Sully

The 2006 extension came in the wake of a civil court suit in which the Peruvian government was found at fault for failing to comply with the National General Health Law, the National Air and Environmental Quality Standards, and a Supreme Decree regarding declaring States of Emergency in cases of contamination.

Carlos Chirinos, the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA) attorney who handled the case said, “This decision confirms the urgent need to implement measures to protect the health and lives of the people in La Oroya that are affected by the smelter. We will closely monitor compliance with the court order, to ensure improvements in the quality of life and health for the populace, and the economic benefits that this will bring to the region.”

The Peruvian government has little power in their relationship with large companies. Not only does the government desperately need the revenue such companies provide, but the development and jobs are all that stand between many of the citizens and destitution. La Oroya is a perfect example of this kind of catch-22.

The land surrounding the complex is incapable of supporting crops. It is high in the mountains, where few crops can survive. It was marginal before the toxins released by the plant were a factor and is now incapable of supporting any sort of crop. The jobs that aren’t directly related to mining and smelting are spin-offs of those industries. Without the Doe Run plant, there would be no stores, schools, daycare, or medical facilities.

Photo credit: Matthew Burpee

La Oroya supports about 35,000 people locally but it also supports many more in various other parts of Peru. Office workers, executives, hotel and restaurant workers and a variety of others across the country depend on the mining and smelting industry for their incomes. To close down a major facility would be a severe economic blow and is not a viable option. So when Doe Run asks for an extension from the Peruvian government, it gets an extension.

Doe Run has also arguably made things better than when the plant was run by the Peruvian government. Lead emissions have been reduced by 35%, sulphur dioxide emissions by 5%, and waste water treatment has been improved. There have been attempts to recover land formerly contaminated by slag heaps.

Photo credit: Matthew Burpee

Emissions are still well above limits set by the WHO and the Peruvian government though. If Doe Run’s La Oroya operation were subject to the same laws they have to comply with in the United States, they would be forced not only to drastically reduce their emissions, but to clean up the surrounding area to a much larger degree than they already have.

Given the greatly reduced costs of operating in countries such as Peru, with their reduced wage and operating costs, there is little excuse for the continued contamination of La Oroya and its citizens. The kind of procrastination and evasion practised by companies like Doe Run in the developing world would never be tolerated in the developed world. Doe Run was forced to clean up its Herculaneum, Missouri operation. Why not La Oroya?

Ground water near this former smelting operation in Midvale, Utah is contaminated by the 2.5 million tons of slag, containing dangerous heavy metals like lead, arsenic, chromium, and cadmium.

According to the EPA plan, the land will be beautified, but the groundwater will probably remain contaminated.

Open this location in Google Earth

The Midvale Slag site, a former smelting facility, covers 446 acres in Midvale. A small portion of the site extends into the city of Murray. The site contains slag and hazardous smelting wastes, posing a threat to human health and the environment. It was added to the Superfund National Priorities List in 1991. It is next to Sharon Steel, another Superfund site that has been cleaned up, which contained former ore-milling facilities.

The discovery that the Sharon Steel Corporation was polluting the environment came in 1982 when the Utah Department of Environmental Quality tested some Midvale children’s sandboxes which contained tailings from the plant. Upon testing, they discovered high levels of lead in the sand. Later, the US Geological Survey tested the town’s water supply and found high levels of arsenic as well as iron, manganese and zinc.

Smelting operations began in the vicinity of the site in 1871. Since then, five separate smelters have been located on or near the site. The smelters treated ores from Bingham Canyon and other mines.

Studies begun in 1984 found that ground water and soil are contaminated with heavy metals. Today there are 2.5 million tons of slag containing lead, arsenic, chromium, and cadmium, along with other smelting wastes. Potential human health threats include drinking contaminated shallow ground water, or swallowing, inhaling or handling contaminated soil and wastes.

Testing by the Utah Department of Health indicated that the slag contains high concentrations of arsenic and heavy metals. The slag is found on the surface and down to a depth of 20 feet. Hence there is a potential for ground water contamination. Several municipal wells serving an estimated 440,000 people are within 3 miles of the site.

The superfund clean-up plan states that the remedy will result in hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants remaining on the site. The groundwater will remained contaminated.

The City understands that the plan involves limited action on the ground water which includes ongoing monitoring of the plume and the levels of contaminates discharged into the Jordan River. Midvale is supportive of this alternative believing that it strikes the appropriate balance between the impacts of contaminated ground water on human health and the environment and a cost effective method to move the site forward to reuse.
–JoAnn B. Seghini, Midvale City Mayor source

The proposal contemplates virtually no action with respect to contaminated ground water on the east side of the Jordan River, but anticipates that the contaminated ground water will be allowed gradually to migrate into and be dispersed by the Jordan River over time. The proposal completely fails to account for the changes in ground water dynamics which will be caused as the uncontaminated portions of the shallow aquifer are developed over the next few years.
–Robert P. Hill, Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District source

The proposed plan naively assumes that flow rates and patterns in the shallow aquifer will remain unchanged for the next 300 years, notwithstanding the substantial development of drinking water wells in the aquifer that is already under way.
–David G. Ovard, Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District source

If this continues to remain a polluted area it not only harms the health of everyone, but also will continue to downgrade the area. This is not fair to anyone who believed Midvale as a vital part of the Salt Lake City Valley, and still believe could be a hub of the Valley, with various contributions from not only business, but from a lovely place in which to reside.
–Russ Becker, Ball Feed & Horse Supply

Open this location in Google Earth

additional source

Making Aluminum in Western Australia

Australia is renown for having beautiful coastlines and expanses of white sandy beaches, as well as being one of the driest continents in the world. Therefore, It comes as a suprise to find situated on what could be described as a magnificent coastal stretch of Western Australian water, an Industrial region that spans 12 kilometers along the foreshore from north to south and is approximately 2 kilometers wide. This region is located 37 kilometers south of Perth, the Western Australian capital, and takes up 1,180 hectares of land, 80 % of which a small, tiny, little company called Alcoa occupies.

Small may have been a slight exaggeration on my part, after all Alcoa only has 250 operations that spread across a tiny community of 30 nations, with Western Australia being lucky enough to acquire three of these magnifiers of beauty, restorers of nature and revitalizers of natural resources.

Hey, it is a well-known fact that Australia is the lucky country!

Alcoa, also known as the Aluminum Company of America, operates in this Industrial region of Kwinana, 15 km south of Fremantle, Perth and a stone throw from the central business district. The Kwinana refinery began in 1963 and produces 1.9 million tones of aluminum annually. Coupled with the other Western Australian refineries, Australia produces 15% of the worlds Aluminum, which is a fabulous feat considering Alcoa depletes natural resources including Australia’s precious water supply, quicker than mother nature can reproduce.

This makes perfect sense when Australia is one of the driest continents on earth.

In a recent study of Perth, the CSIRO or Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization reported:

a 10% decrease in average rainfall and an estimated higher median temperature for the region. They predict this figure will impact upon the ground water of Perth reducing its holding by up to 50%, and they predict that in the future it will become even hotter.

Alcoa plays a significant part in this process because not only do they use natural resources, they also contaminate them, the land surrounding them, the air we breathe, and our glorious ozone layer. It’s like a bad Christmas present that you can’t return, or sell on eBay.

Without taking into consideration the size of the Alcoa plant in Kwinana — because of its insignificance causing an environmental impact — and the lack of incredibly loud noise associated with production, it is hard to ignore the captivating stream of carbon monoxide emissions, sulphur dioxide (So2), Benzene and volatile organic compounds (VOC) cascading into the air.

What a truly magnificent sight! Plumes of smoke 30-100 meters high. It brings a tear to my eye, and coughing to my lungs. Also, my nose is running.

These plumes then settle and hang around for up to 24 hours, which adds to the entertainment factor because you can now choose, if you wish, to run and frolic in them instead of just viewing their destruction from afar.

Sulphur dioxide only attacks the throat and lungs of the creatures residing nearby, making breathing difficult, and attacks plant vegetation, eventually destroying it. Volatile organic compounds erode our ozone layer and allow harmful UV rays to penetrate the atmosphere. Of course, Alcoa, state:

they are committed to using fewer resources, reducing toxic waste and pollution and becoming more environmentally friendly. They also swear they will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25%, and that they have introduced cleaner production programs.

In making these promises, Alcoa also applied for a new license.

The truly wonderful thing is, Alcoa is expanding. In 2003, they built new bauxite residue and storage ponds that are clay-lined, which of course prevents residue from permeating the earth.

This by-product of aluminum manufacturing takes years to dissipate and these ponds like the Alcoa operation are only small; they cover a tiny area of 44 hectares.

With Kwinana dubbed the Cancer Capital of Western Australia and many bizarre types of Cancer killing off the workers of Alcoa, it makes perfect sense that the Western Australian government is allowing brand new residential areas to be constructed in close proximity.

The real estate offices have been inundated with calls and they have almost sold out of potentially ‘fabulous’ blocks with a view. You can see that magnificent plume and there may even be a possibility you can play in it.

Of course, research has been conducted to ensure the environment is safe to build on. These tests were carried out by Alcoa themselves, because the Department of Minerals and Energy thought that the Department of Environmental Protection was doing it, and they in turn thought the Department of Health were responsible, so therefore they were unable to decide who should carry out the relevant studies. In addition, they thought Alcoa had done such a fantastic job, they would borrow their study instead.

Talk about shifting the responsibility. Maybe they thought Alcoa resembled a hot potato.

Who could honesty expect anything more from a governing body who find it challenging to issue a license to destroy mother nature and rape the earth. And, we worry about gun licenses!

Alcoa now has a brand-new license to kill, and no, the company is not related to James Bond. They will, however, continue to pollute the air we breathe with toxic emissions, destroy vegetation, create acid rain, drain our natural resources and contaminate the earth.

Our future is so bright I definitely will have to wear shades, and protective clothing and sunscreen and an oxygen mask and…

I had arrived in South Korea at one in the morning the night before from Canada and was scheduled to begin teaching my first class at 6:30am that morning. As I walked down the narrow mountain pathway from my home towards the school, I could feel my throat become sore with each breath I took, and my eyes were hurting so severely that I could barely open them. The closer I got to the school the worse I was feeling and the denser the air had become. By the time I had reached the school and ducked into the washroom I could see the whites of my eyes were blood-shot red and I felt as though I had an instant throat infection.


Walking into the teachers’ lounge I was greeting by my new colleague who handed me my monthly teaching schedule and some loose papers from the director. As I walked down the hallway to my classroom I looked at one of the papers that had been handed to me as part of my orientation from the director. It looked like a formal bulletin in Korean with a penciled English translation written above it. It read, ‘It is the duty of anyone living in Korea to report North Korean spies. Call the spy hot-line and you will be rewarded’ – indicating an amount that equalled about $100 U.S. dollars – with a telephone phone number listed.

I walked into my first class of eight-year-olds and took my place at the front of the class. The students had all arrived early to see their new ‘foreign’ teacher. Although these children technically lived in Seoul, the area was still somewhat on the outskirts and some of the students had only caught glimpses of a ‘foreigner’. For the students to be able to interact with this strange foreigner such as myself – well, it was quite a novelty for some.

The first thing that struck me, other than the fact that we were all gathered here for class before I was normally awake in Canada, was the fact that most of the students were wearing surgical masks. Some were just plain white as doctors wore in the operating room, while others had cartoon characters on the front of them – Sailor Moon was sported on quite a few of the girls’ masks.

My first thought was to suppress my laughter. Did their parents think that I as ‘the foreigner’ would contaminate them? Was this some wacky fashion statement? I had no idea – and I had to find out why they were wearing them. Considering it was an English conversation class, it didn’t seem overly harmful to take a moment to ask about these odd masks.

Through broken English, gestures and wild page turning in their English-Korean dictionaries, I came to understand that while masks were thought to help people recover quickly when they were sick, that the children in this area used them to help protect them from the air pollution. It all came together. My blood-shot eyes – my burning throat. Of course – it was the air pollution. While we had pollution issues back home I had never experienced anything like this. I hadn’t even realized that it was the pollution that was affecting me that morning.

During my time in Korea I would never become accustomed to the severity of the air pollution where I lived. The pollution from Seoul’s eleven million cars all running at the same time would come to settle each rush hour in our area. I would often bring my umbrella in the mornings, convinced it would rain – only to understand later in the day, it was just the haze of the pollution appearing time and again like heavy rain clouds. I would also become used to scrubbing my skin each evening when I returned from work to remove the greenish colouring of pollution from my body – much like the green reside I used to find as a young girl on my finger after wearing costume jewellery.

After our lively discussion, I turned to the class material and took out a large picture that they were each to write down five sentences about it and then share with the class. The first picture showed a young girl and boy inside a home playing, with many things happening around them – a dog spilling over a fishbowl – a cat jumping up on a bookshelf that was falling over – a bird flying out of it’s cage – and the list goes on… In a very small corner of the picture was a small, insignificant window showing a black, night-time sky with stars.

The instant I showed the picture all the children gasped very loudly as if to be impressed – making a, ‘w-o-w’ sound in their voice. I didn’t understand. There was no laughter at the picture depicting all this distress – there was not an ‘oh no’ sound in their voice – it was if they were looking at something beautiful.

One student asked me if it looked like that in Canada. Looked like what? Animals on the loose? No. Many pets in the home? Thinking it was unusual in Korea to see many pets. No. Did she mean the way the home looked? No. She walked up to the picture and pointed to the small window. She was asking – all the students were asking – if I could see stars in Canada like in the picture. I still didn’t understand. Stars? Yes. How is it different here? No one – not one student in my class – in all their eight years of living had seen stars in the sky. One student reported proudly he had gone to an IMAX film the summer before, and saw stars in the film – but no one had seen stars in the Korean sky. Why? I didn’t understand. Well they explained, because the air pollution was so high that all they saw were dense pollution clouds.

That moment – in Korea – in a classroom of eight-year-olds – I had been the student and they were my teachers – and I had been taught a lesson of a lifetime.

Melissa Valks in Canada

From Anecdotes from Teachers of English, more stories there.
Download the high resolution images from this story or view them as a slideshow

An industrial city founded in 1935 as a slave labor camp, the Siberian city of Norilsk, Russia is the northernmost major city in Russia. After Murmansk, it’s the largest city above the Arctic Circle. It’s also the most polluted.

Right now, in June and July, the sun stays up all day, but the furnaces in the Nadezhda Metallurgical plant run round the clock all year long, smelting nickel and other ores and spouting a steady fountain of toxic, sulfurous smoke. Two million tons of sulfur dioxide per year since the 1950s. That they reported.

As a result, the Norilsk region is the home of the world’s largest pollution induced forest decline. For forty kilometers around the smelters, the soil contains 10-1000 times the normal background level of heavy metals.

As a result, the snow is yellow and black.

As a result, move to Norilsk to work, and your life expectancy will drop by ten years.

“Norilsk is the world’s biggest nickel and palladium producer, having overtaken Inco several years back. Since data first emerged from the ex-Soviet Union in the early nineties, it has established itself as one of the world’s single biggest ambient air polluters – if not the biggest. Indeed, despite early technological assistance from outside Russia (notably from Finland’s Outokumpu Oy), its contribution to the country’s sulphur dioxide burden has increased in relative terms.” Mines & Communities

“[Norilsk] is a city where the bus driver tells you, ‘If a Norilsk man gets sick in Moscow, the way to cure him is to move him closer to the car’s exhaust.’” Howard Weaver

“In my estimation, about 400,000 people took part in the construction of this complex. Due to the cold and the bullets, about one-fifth of them died,” Anatoly Lvov says. “At the same time, tens of thousands of volunteers worked shoulder to shoulder with the prisoners, and they object to those who say Norilsk was built on people’s bones. The prisoners who survived also are proud to have built this.” Howard Weaver

"In 1997, with the old combine in disarray, one of Russia’s richest men, Vladimir O. Potanin, bought its mines and factories and began a modernization that has cut the work force nearly in half, to 60,000, and jettisoned many of its obligations to support the city’s basic services." New York Times

“Officials say the environmental depths of Norilsk pollution was reached in 1984, but the plants even by official admission still emit many times the allowable norms and acid rain is killing hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and tundra nearby. Water pollution also is severe, with officials admitting to more than 100 polluted kilometers of river.” Howard Weaver

“The Norilsk Mining Companies… produce one seventh of all the factory pollution in Russia. Each year they churn out over two million tonnes in waste gas, and 85 million cubic meters of dirty water, according to the few figures provided by the Russian government. Its impact, ecologists say, is felt in Norway and Canada, and is killing off the forest tundra for hundreds of miles. Locals say the snow is yellow for 30 miles around the town.” Mines and Communities

“They took everything from me,” said Olga I. Yaskina, who was sent to the
Gulag in Norilsk in 1952 when she was just 16 for writing a letter to a friend in exile that said: “Don’t cry. The sun will rise for us again.”

She never left after she was released from the prison camp three years later. Now 67, she receives a pension and works as a concierge at an apartment building, supporting herself and an unemployed son on little more than $300 a month.

She stays not because she wants to but because she has no better alternative. “I have nothing left on the continent,” she said.

New York Times

"The [charitable donations] represent a “goodwill gesture” to the people of Montana from the Russian company that bought controlling interest in Stillwater Mining Co. in 2003. The donation marks ZooMontana’s largest corporate donation to date. Frank McAllister, CEO at Stillwater, said the idea was born when the company was in the midst of transactions with Norilsk two years ago.

“We were concerned about our image and needed to explain to the community exactly who Norilsk is,” he said.
Billings Gazette

Thanks to Dave Greten

This is a historic port. A lot of the iron that built the Chicago skyline and the coal that drove the steel mills in Indiana came through this port in East Chicago.

Why is East Chicago actually in Indiana? "East of" was the code word back then for "industrial."

This city was incorporated the same year as the Chicago Columbian Exhibition, 1893. "Chicago," then as now, was code for one of the most beautiful cities in North America.

During World War I, East Chicago was known as the "Arsenal of America". Later, it became the "Workshop of America". These images suggest other nationalistic generalizations, like Ashtray of America, Coal Chute of America, etc.

Are all of these facilities still operating? If not, they may be TOADs, an acronym term coined by planners to mean Temporary, Obsolete, Abandoned, or Derelict.

What could that be in that water?

"Companies with permit violations were the BP refinery in Whiting, ISG Burns Harbor and Indiana Harbor, Ispat Inland in East Chicago, NIPSCO generating stations in Gary, Michigan City and Wheatfield, and U.S. Steel in Gary and Portage… U.S. Steel’s Gary Works discharged cyanide on 16 different days during the 18-month period. Cyanide is a byproduct from metal processing in coke plants…
Leise Jones, PIRG’s Midwest field director, said the report lists Indiana as one of 10 states that allowed the most exceedances of Clean Water Act permit limits." source

There are no less than two crosses and fifty-eight busy little bees on the official city flag. The blue stripe in the center of the flag represents the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal, which isn’t anywhere near that color any more. The flag is just a symbol.

"From Roxana on the south side, to the Marktown Historic District on the north side, East Chicago is home to 30,000 residents. The city boasts newly remodeled or totally new elementary schools in nearly every neighborhood, two junior high schools, and the outstanding Central High School. The city also has two full service libraries and more than twenty parks featuring everything from a nine hole golf course to two water parks." official site

"East Chicago is classified as a second-class city under Indiana law, which classifies all cities by population…. The city’s boundary encompasses 12 square miles. There is one police station with 116 police officers." source