The Allegheny County Health Department heard from the public on U.S. Steel’s proposed permit for a new hot strip mill at its plant in Braddock.
The company, which was purchased by Nippon Steel of Japan last year, has proposed putting in a new hot strip mill at its Edgar Thomson plant. A hot strip mill presses steel slabs into coils of flat steel used to manufacture cars and appliances.
At the hearing U.S. Steel workers, area residents, and business and labor leaders sounded off on the pros and cons of the project.
The new mill would replace an old operation at U.S. Steel’s Irvin plant in West Mifflin. It would lower U.S. Steel’s overall pollution in the county, but would increase emissions of sulfur oxides, particulate matter and other contaminants at the Edgar Thomson plant, which is already one of the county’s largest emitters.
The new mill is part of Nippon Steel’s $3 billion investment in U.S. Steel’s Pittsburgh-area plants, which employ 3,000 union steelworkers.
The health department said that based on its own analysis, the new strip mill’s emissions “will not significantly impact air quality” in the region.
But many in the hearing came to testify against the plan.
Braddock, like other environmental justice communities, has been disproportionately impacted by industrial air pollution.
Studies have found air pollution in the Mon Valley contributed to higher absentee rates for students in Clairton schools. In one study, children also had higher rates of asthma than state and national averages.
Another study found air pollution contributed to 3,500 deaths in the eight-county Pittsburgh region in 2019.
Mary Nesby, mayor of nearby Homestead, grew up in Braddock. She said her family members have died from respiratory illnesses.
“I’ve lost aunts and uncles who will never get to see generations of their family go to work, no matter where it was, because of the respiratory illnesses, because of air we breathe,” Nesby said.
She said she understands the area needs economic development, but shouldn’t take precedent “over human life.”
Community meeting for new hot strip mill in Braddock gets heated
Natalie Morris of Braddock said she has difficulty breathing as it is and wanted the county to decline the permit.
“I’m on oxygen, and I’m saying ‘no’,” Morris said. “I understand it could help with employment and everything, but right now I’m (worried) about breathing. What about people with asthma? Don’t forget about the people that depend on the air to survive.”
But Chris Kelly, mayor of another neighboring community, West Mifflin, said Nippon Steel would use modern equipment that will be much less polluting than the steel industry’s smoky past.
“It’s going to be better than it was, and the jobs are better than they were,” Kelly said.
Kelly said he remembers the economic and societal damage that befell Pittsburgh when the steel industry imploded in the 1980s.
“I’ve lived here my whole life. I saw the devastation of a mill when it wasn’t modernized, I’ve seen what happened in the family structure. I’ve seen it all.” Kelly said.
He said he would not like to see the same happen to U.S. Steel’s remaining plants in the area.
Andrew Macey, who works at U.S. Steel’s nearby Clairton coke works, said he has seen pollution from the steel industry decline with more modern equipment.
“It’s cleaner this year than it was last year. Each year, you know, they advance in the technology that they have and the equipment that they implement,” Macey said.
Macey, 72, is a third-generation steelworker. His mother worked in a mill in McKeesport during World War II. He remembers when the area was much more polluted by the steel industry.
“There was nothing growing on those hillsides when I was a child. In fact, when we’d go from McKeesport to Elizabeth, we were told to put the windows up because the sulfur smell was so bad,” Macey said.“And there was nothing but brown on the hillsides. Well right now, it’s as green as the Laurel Highlands.”
Public comment on the permit is open through November 17. Written comments can be sent to ACHD Air Quality Program, 836 Fulton Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15233-2124, emailed to aq*******@*************ty.us or submitted online.
