Chicago, surfers oppose US Steel settlement in court

HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) - Chicago attorneys and a surfing organization have told a judge that a proposed federal settlement over U.S. Steel's repeated chemical spills into Lake Michigan is inadequate.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the Chicago Law Department and the Surfrider Foundation urged the federal judge Thursday to impose tougher penalties on the steelmaker for last year's chromium discharges from its Midwest Plant in Portage, Indiana, into the region's primary source of drinking water.

Court documents filed by the city of Chicago and the nonprofit foundation say the nearly $900,000 in fines and penalties proposed by the federal government fall short when compared with the ecological damage caused by the carcinogenic discharges.

University of Chicago law students discovered last year that the plant violated chromium limits at least four times since 2013.