Chicago and a group representing Great Lakes surfers urged a federal judge Thursday to crack down on U.S. Steel, accusing the Trump administration of failing to punish the company harshly enough for repeated spills of toxic chromium into Lake Michigan.

The nearly $900,000 in fines and penalties proposed by the government are woefully inadequate when compared with the ecological damage caused by chromium discharges from U.S. Steel’s Midwest Plant in Portage, Ind., according to court documents filed by the Chicago Law Department and the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation.

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“The government’s inadequate oversight … demonstrates the need for Surfrider to remain vigilant,” Mark Templeton, the group’s attorney, wrote in its new court filing, noting that federal and state regulators had failed to penalize U.S. Steel earlier for multiple spills documented by the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago.

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