Don't these people learn? Little more than two months ago, Indiana threatened to taint Chicago's drinking water with a new permit that would allow the BP plant in Whiting to pump more pollution into Lake Michigan. Outrage from Illinois senators and legislators, Mayor Daley and this page led BP to scotch those plans -- at least for now.

But even under wider public scrutiny after the BP controversy, U.S. Steel Gary Works hopes to cash in a new proposed wastewater permit that likely would increase the levels of chromium and other toxic chemicals it is permitted to discharge into the Grand Calumet River -- which flows into Lake Michigan.

Once again, the Illinois contingent, including Senators Dick Durbin and Barack Obama and Representatives Rahm Emanuel and Jan Schakowsky, is shouting no. And this time, so is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Having taken a deserved beating for signing off on the BP permit, federal regulators have blocked the one gifted to U.S. Steel by the Indiana Environmental Management Department. Unless Indiana revises the permit to overcome those objections or offers a satisfactory explanation of why it wrote the permit the way it did, the EPA will reject the permit.

In its two letters of objection to the Indiana environmental agency, the EPA demanded more stringent pollution standards, greater disclosure on limits and proof that the steel giant -- whose $157 million in profits in 2006 earned it the 147th spot on the Fortune 500 -- needs as much as five years to comply with clean water standards for some chemicals. Given how elusive definitive figures on pollution levels are, these could be tricky negotiations.

By the terms of U.S. Steel's 1994 permit, the company -- the single largest source of water pollution in the Lake Michigan basin -- is allowed to release a monthly average of 29.8 pounds of chromium per month. Under the terms of the new permit, that would go up to 48.5 pounds, a 56 percent increase. Indiana claims those numbers are misleading because the discharge is now measured before it is treated, when it is more concentrated. Previously, the pollutants were measured after treatment.

If this permit was objectionable enough to be flagged by the EPA, how in the world can the federal agency deny environmental groups and other members of the public an opportunity to challenge the permit? This is a public health issue. How much pollution goes into Lake Michigan directly affects the quality of the water we put in our bodies every day.

Perhaps if Lake Michigan were the major source of drinking water for Hoosiers, we wouldn't have to keep revisiting this issue: No more polluting Lake Michigan. If Indiana's environmental agency and the EPA don't do the right thing in keeping big companies -- however much they contribute to Indiana's economy -- from poisoning this precious resource, we will only shout louder.