An Indiana Department of Environmental Management decision on an East Chicago permit renewal has left a group of advocates feeling pleasantly surprised.

Members from the University of Chicago’s Abrams Environmental Law Clinic have worked with community residents to ask for stricter regulations for Tradebe Treatment and Recycling, a hazardous waste processing facility in East Chicago.

IDEM, on Jan. 31, approved a renewal and modification of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act for Tradebe. The act governs the disposal of solid and hazardous waste, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Tradebe is one of the largest toxic chemical processors in Lake County, according to the EPA’s toxics release inventory tracker.Before the renewal, IDEM hosted public hearings and accepted comments from residents.

Comments were concerned about Tradebe’s history of violations, according to Post-Tribune archives. Some violations include storing hazardous waste in damaged or leaking containers, incompatible hazardous materials stored near each other, cracks and deterioration in secondary containment systems and staff members being untrained in hazardous waste management.

The permit renewal expands notice obligations when Tradebe violates air quality laws, adds additional obligations to document the history of hazardous waste spills at the site and strengthens staff training requirements.

“I was kind of pleasantly surprised at the level of detail that they tried to engage with a lot of our points,” said Uven Chong, a student in the clinic who helped draft public comments.

The law clinic worked with the East Chicago Coalition Community Advisory Group to voice their concerns, some of which they say the permit still doesn’t address. A news release from the clinic said the permit fails to impose stricter conditions in “a number of critical areas,” including omitting safeguards for storage and management of hazardous waste char.

“Safeguards like this are crucial because improper hazardous waste management could result in dangerous dust dispersing into the air, posing serious health and environmental risks for East Chicago residents,” Akeesha Daniels, co-chair of the East Chicago Coalition Community Advisory Group, said in a news release.

Daniels has lived in East Chicago for about 48 years, according to Post-Tribune archives. She’d expressed concerns about the lack of transparency from Tradebe, IDEM and local government, and said residents should know more about the company’s plans earlier in the process.

Sam Heppell, clinical teaching fellow at the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic, said members of the clinic typically engaged with IDEM through public comments filed.

Residents expressed concerns in September that Tradebe didn’t attend public meetings.

“We sent (Tradebe) a letter and encouraged them to go above the bare legal minimum and to actually come out and talk to and engage with the community,” Heppell said. “They could answer a lot of the questions that folks have, … but they declined to do so.”

Tradebe previously told the Post-Tribune that hearings were conducted by IDEM, and the company follows all required steps for permit renewal and modifications.

“Tradebe has been educating the public about the project and has already done that in several ways, including hosting a publicized multi-session public meeting and real time Q&A at the East Chicago Library that was attended by multiple company executives, members of the public as well as special interest groups such as the Abrams Law Clinic,” the company previously told the Post-Tribune.

Although the permit was renewed, Heppell said the work with Tradebe is still a work in progress.

“This is the beginning of the story, not the end of the story,” he said. “We’ll be watching IDEM to make sure that they are stepping up in their enforcement activity in the way they say they’re going to. We’ll be watching Tradebe and those inspection reports to see if they’re improving.”

mwilkins@chicagotribune.com