Indiana National Park Reopens Beaches After Deadly Cyanide Leak Killed 3,000 Fish

A national park in Indiana in the United States has reopened after a chemical spill that had killed nearly 3,000 fish in a Lake Michigan tributary.

ABC7 News reported that an ArcelorMittal steel plant had admitted to the spill last week and said that the leak was caused by a ¡°failure at the blast furnace water recirculation system.¡±

ArcelorMittal is the world's leading integrated steel and mining company.

UPDATE: The National Park Service has reopened the waters today at the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk Beach and the Little Calumet River.
For more information, please follow the link: https://t.co/sovx4g619z.

¡ª Indiana Dunes (@IndianaDunesNPS) August 22, 2019

According to local reports, the leak put toxic levels of both cyanide and ammonia-nitrogen into the Little Calumet River, which caused the National Park Service to close the Portage Lakefront and parts of the Little Calumet River on August 16.

Portage Mayor John Cannon criticized the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, which reportedly responded to reports of ¡°distressed fish¡± but did not notify the public of the hazard.

¡°IDEM needs to be held accountable to let our residents and our visitors know what¡¯s going on,¡± the Mayor said in a statement to ABC7.

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ArcelorMittal said that the company would ¡°work closely with the agencies involved¡± to rectify the spill.

According to reports, the level of cyanide found in the water has reached safe levels for several consecutive days, allowing Dunes National Park, which is located on the southern shore of Lake Michigan in Porter, Indiana, to reopen.

No cyanide was detected on two of the water testing days. IDEM and ArcelorMittal conducted the sampling, but three independent labs reportedly also came back with identical results.

Chemicals and oil leaks have been fatal to marine wildlife at several instances in the past too.