Around 20 people, including elected officials and members of the grassroots environmental group Gary Advocates for Responsible Development (GARD) showed up to a Thursday meeting held by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) at Gary’s 21st Century Charter School.

The meeting concerned the pending renewal of a five-year air permit for Carmeuse Lime LLC’s Gary manufacturing facility, which drew criticism from GARD and the Midwest-based environmental group the Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC) over past permit violations at the site.

In reviewing publicly available IDEM records, ELPC staff found a series of past IDEM enforcement actions against Carmeuse for violations of the Gary site’s operating permit. Issues at the facility, which manufactures lime for use in the steelmaking process, included exceeding permitted emission levels for airborne pollutants and failing to conduct required emissions tests. The facility’s track record led ELPC and GARD to ask IDEM to hold a meeting, and to revise the permit to include more stringent testing requirements.

Jenny Acker, permits branch chief for the Indiana Office of Air Quality, fielded questions and comments from attendees. Throughout the meeting, she stressed the limitations of her role.

“I’m legally obligated to issue a permit that can be complied with,” she said, “if they follow the letter of the permit and follow that they are going to be in compliance with all the local regulations.”

IDEM’s permitting and enforcement branches operate separately for the most part, Acker told attendees. Permit violations prompt enforcement actions but do not typically jeopardize a business’ prospects for a permit renewal. Carmeuse’s permit, she said, which is slated to remain largely unchanged if renewed, already compels the company to comply with relevant environmental regulations.

Data shows that the predominantly Black city of Gary has borne a disproportionate share of Indiana’s atmospheric pollution. A report published in March by The Guardian found that Northwest Indiana’s industrial zones are the fourth worst region in the country for fine particle air pollution.

Several speakers invoked Title IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race and other factors of identity by bodies and programs receiving federal funds, to argue that IDEM should take Gary’s status into account in evaluating Carmeuse’s permit renewal.

In 1994, then-President Bill Clinton issued an executive order that cited Title VI in directing that “each Federal agency shall ensure that all programs or activities receiving Federal financial assistance that affect human health or the environment do not directly, or through contractual or other arrangements, use criteria, methods, or practices that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin.”

In 2011 the Environmental Justice Interagency Working Group established a Title VI Committee to address the application of the legislation’s application to environmental regulation.

“Environmental justice has to do with the city of Gary for 125 years being inundated with industrial pollution,” GARD member Carolyn McCrady told Acker.

But Acker told attendees that the federal law has yet to be incorporated into IDEM’s procedure for assessing permits.

“We do understand that there are overburdened populations. We do understand that these populations need protection,” she said. “However, EPA has not given us any clear guidance on how to do that and they have yet to implement any kind of a regulation that we can follow.”

Ultimately, Acker said, the IDEM permitting process is not the most appropriate tool for concerned citizens seeking to block or restrict the activities of polluting businesses.

“The problem is decades and decades of the city allowing this pollution to come into the city,” she said.

A more effective way to block unwanted companies from operating in Gary, Acker suggested, would be through the local zoning process. She cited the city of Muncie, where in 2019 a planned steel dust recycling plant was scuttled after the city government pulled support for the project.

Three elected officials, Indiana Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary; Indiana Rep. Reagan Hatcher, D-Gary; and Gary Councilman David Fossett, D-2nd, all spoke against the permit renewal at the location.

“I’m a little bit concerned about the lack of concern about past performance or past practices,” Smith said, “because that’s the indication of what you may do in the future.”

IDEM will accept written questions comments regarding the Carmeuse permit renewal until June 5, and will post responses in a publicly available document at a later date. The timeline for the responses will depend on the volume of communications received, Acker said.

A spokesperson for Carmeuse told the Post-Tribune that the company will provide comment at a later date.

adalton@chicagotribune.com