The facility's permit is up for renewal. Activists say the Indiana Department of Environmental Management needs to do more to protect people who get their drinking water from Lake Michigan and visit its beaches.

Sediment, debris, bacteria and chemicals can wash off a construction site and pollute streams and lakes nearby.

The Clean Water Indiana Program usually provides matching dollars to help farmers and landowners implement practices like cover cropping and no-till agriculture — to keep the soil from eroding and getting into local waterways.

Climate change does not only impact water availability, it can also impact its quality.

Two environmental groups say if an Indiana aluminum smelter doesnt clean up its act theyll sue. The Sierra Club and the Environmental Integrity Project announced their intent to sue the Alcoa Warrick smelter for water pollution violations on Tuesday.

Every five years, the EPA is supposed to review new pollution control technology and set stricter limits for pollutants as those treatments improve. But the standards for facilities like BP's Whiting Refinery in northwest Indiana havent been updated since the '80s.

Kari Rhinehart, co-founder of the Franklin group If It Was Your Child, will speak at the event at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters.

Workers on the barge were transferring fuel from a cargo tank to another fuel tank. The tank was overfilled and up to 800 gallons of fuel spilled into Burns Harbor.

That pollution can fuel toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie — threatening the drinking water for at least 11 million people.

Extreme water levels and stronger storms are not only threatening homes and beaches along Lake Michigan they could also send toxic waste into communities and the lake.