August 24, 2026
Environmental and community groups submitted a petition on August 21, 2026, to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asking it to object to an inadequate air permit renewal the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) issued to Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor in Northwest Indiana on July 6, 2026. The permit failed to satisfy many basic requirements of the federal Clean Air Act, such as sufficient monitoring, testing, and reporting requirements to assure compliance with emission limits at all times. Additionally, the permit failed to include the Corrective Action Plans, Operation and Maintenance Plan, and Preventive Maintenance Plan, which are all standard requirements of a Clean Air Act operating permit.
The Environmental Law & Policy Center, Environmental Integrity Project, Gary Advocates for Responsible Development, Just Transition Northwest Indiana, and Faith in Place contend in their petition that IDEM disregarded key concerns that members of the petitioner group raised about the draft permit during the public comment period in 2024.
Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor is the company’s second-largest integrated steel mill in the U.S. and has operated on the shores of Lake Michigan in Northwest Indiana since 1964. It processes up to 5 million net tons of raw steel annually. The facility’s coke ovens, blast furnaces, and sinter plant operations emit tons of harmful air pollutants across Northwest Indiana. Residents living nearby have been exposed to higher levels of air pollution for decades compared to most communities nationwide.
Dorreen Carey, President of Gary Advocates for Responsible Development, said: “EPA must act to object to the deficient IDEM air permit issued to the Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor Steel Mill. Area residents are being denied full health and environmental protection under the Clean Air Act. As written, the IDEM permit does not include key monitoring and testing needed to confirm compliance with required emission limits. EPA and IDEM need to do their jobs to provide NWI Indiana communities the highest level of protection.”
Ashley Williams, Executive Director at Just Transition Northwest Indiana, said: “Yet again, we’re fighting another flawed air permit for one of the Midwest’s dirtiest polluters, this time at Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor. The permit fails to provide critical monitoring, testing, and reporting safeguards. A new groundbreaking study by JTNWI and Carnegie Mellon University, Measuring Legacy Pollution’s Burden on Northwest Indiana Communities, names the Burns Harbor mill as the region’s worst driver of health harm and mortality from fine particulate matter and other criteria air pollutants, costing a whopping $1.7 billion in damages and contributing to 124 premature deaths every single year.
“Our communities cannot continue to shoulder this unabated harm, especially as a presidential exemption now threatens to gut Clean Air Act requirements for this mill and numerous others, deepening the historic toll of environmental injustice in Northwest Indiana.”
Max Lopez, Associate Attorney at the Environmental Law & Policy Center, said: “U.S. EPA needs to step in here to ensure that community members in Northwest Indiana are not exposed to even more unnecessary and illegal levels of air pollution. This region is already subject to highly concentrated pollution resulting in some of the highest cancer and respiratory disease rates in the country. IDEM has a duty to ensure that every permit complies with the baseline protections provided by the Clean Air Act, but the agency has failed to do that for this Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor permit. EPA must use its oversight authority to ensure the facility implements critical monitoring provisions required by the Clean Air Act.”
Haley Lewis, Senior Attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project, said: “More than two years ago, we warned Indiana officials about serious weaknesses in the federal air pollution control permit for the Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor steel mill that put local communities at risk. Unfortunately, Indiana failed to fix those problems. And so now we are urging EPA to step in and object to the permit and require stronger pollution controls at the plant to protect public health.”