The Indiana Department of Environmental Management is doing such an abysmal job of enforcing Clean Water Act standards that several Hoosier environmental groups took the bold step of officially asking the federal government to get involved.

Those groups are the Hoosier Environmental Council, the Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter and the Environmental Law & Policy Center. On Thursday, they filed a petition asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to either compel IDEM to correct problems with the Indiana water pollution control program or take it over.

State environmental regulators have the authority to enact and enforce water pollution rules, including reviewing and granting National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits, under the Clean Water Act. But the EPA has the authority to intervene when states fail to meet federal standards.

The advocates asking the EPA to intervene are rightly concerned that Indiana’s water pollution rules are too lenient and don’t do enough to protect Indiana’s waters.

“The implication of having a flawed rule is that you end up with flawed permits,” said Jesse Kharbanda, executive director of the Hoosier Environmental Council. A telling example is the permit the state issued to BP in 2007. The permit allowed the company to increase the amount of pollution it dumps into Lake Michigan.

For its part, IDEM says it complies with federal and state requirements. “Additionally, Indiana is a leader among states in our region in renewing and updating facilities’ permits, which is essential to protecting and improving water quality,” an IDEM statement read.

Indiana regulators are working on revisions to the water rules. But environmental experts are becoming increasingly frustrated with the state’s inadequate efforts to improve the rules.

The state’s failure to adopt effective anti-degradation rules – a basic element of the Clean Water Act – is a specific concern. Anti-degradation rules prevent pollution from further degrading Indiana’s rivers, lakes and streams.

During a conference call with journalists Thursday, Bowden Quinn of the Sierra Club said environmental advocates have closely followed the state’s rule-making process for three years and have pointed out the flaws along the way, but IDEM has not listened.

“IDEM is issuing permits that violate the Clean Water Act,” Quinn said.

The groups also said the state’s water pollution program allows coal companies to dump additional pollutants into lakes and streams with little control and inadequate opportunity for the public to protest questionable permits.

Albert Ettinger of the Environmental Law & Policy Center described the state’s permitting process as little more than “a speed bump on the way to polluting.”

The petition was sent to Lisa Jackson, head of the EPA in Washington. The next step is most likely a review by EPA Region 5 leaders who oversee Indiana.

“This isn’t just about environmentalists being critical of the state agency. This is about environmental experts being concerned about public health,” said Rae Schnapp, water policy director for the Hoosier Environmental Council.

The best outcome for Hoosiers is not a takeover by federal regulators but more effective action from IDEM.