Ballast water is sometimes blamed for introducing invasive species into new waterways - like the zebra mussel, which has cost the Great Lakes region billions of dollars.

Residents living in the USS Lead Superfund site in East Chicago will have opportunities to talk with the Environmental Protection Agency and learn more about its cleanup plans this month.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently re-approved its use for dicamba resistant soybean and cotton crops. Last year, a coalition of farmers and environmentalists filed a lawsuit against the EPA for approving the weedkiller.

At issue is a part of the Energy Independence and Security Act, which only allows land cultivated before 2007 to grow corn and soybeans for biofuels.

The Hoosier Environmental Council and five other groups are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over recent rollbacks to coal ash regulations.

The EPA wants to merge the Office of the Science Advisor with the Office of Science Policy, which would give it less authority.

The technical advisor could discuss important developments coming up like the EPA's proposed cleanup plan for the West Calumet Housing Complex.

The EPA says partial replacement doesn't reduce lead contamination and can sometimes make it worse.

The EPA only conducted 13 percent of all asbestos compliance inspections from 2011 to 2015. States responsible for their own monitoring did 87 percent.

A priority designation makes more long-term federal funding for cleanup available. Indiana has 39 active sites on the Superfund NPL list.