Residents who live near the Edgar Thomson Plant in Braddock expressed their frustration at a U.S. Steel project to build a hot strip mill at the plant. A public hearing over an air permit for the plant was held Thursday night.
The hot strip mill will lower U.S. Steel’s overall pollution levels in Allegheny County. But it does this by moving more of its operations to the Edgar Thomson Plant, one of the largest pollution sources in Allegheny County.
“[They’re] moving their pollution over here,” said Braddock councilwoman Patricia Kelley, who attended the hearing. “It dumps way more on us than previously existed before they moved in.”
The hot strip mill converts steel slabs into coils of thin, flat steel, and would replace an aging operation at the company’s Irvin Plant, in nearby West Mifflin. The company plans to build it on an area at Edgar Thomson Plant that currently houses parking, county officials said.
The mill will use natural gas and coke oven gas, captured from the company’s nearby coke plant in Clairton, to heat the slabs before pressing them into long, thin coils. The company currently produces the slabs at the Edgar Thomson Plant, and ships them by rail to Irvin, where it re-heats them to processes into coils.
The new process will save the company from having to transport the slabs by rail. U.S. Steel’s new owner, Nippon Steel, is spending $1 billion on the new facility.
Though the project will result in less pollution than U.S. Steel’s current operations, it would increase Edgar Thomson Plant’s overall emission of fine particles by over 40 percent.
Kelley and others who attended the meeting expressed dismay that the plan will increase pollution levels in Braddock, an environmental justice community with some of the highest pollution levels in the state.
“[The plan is] without any consideration about the impact it’s going to have on us and the surrounding communities,” said Kelley. “You should be mindful of … the footprint that you leave behind.”
The project is part of a makeover the company is getting from its new owners, Nippon Steel of Japan, which bought U.S. Steel last year. Nippon pledged $2.5 billion in investments in U.S. Steel’s Pittsburgh-area plants.
U.S. Steel’s plants in the area employ around 3,000 union steelworkers, but they are also the county’s largest source of air pollution, according to state data.
After multiple residents questioned why the county would allow the move, Dr. Iulia Vann, the director of the health department, acknowledged the community had been “impacted by pollution for a really long time.”
“It is our responsibility to come in with these strong permits that are putting forward the standards so we can have good enforcement strategies for the industries that are in this space,” Vann said. But she cautioned the crowd that the agency had to allow industry to operate, so long as it meets current legal standards.
Health department officials said their modeling showed the project wouldn’t cause Allegheny County to exceed federal air pollution limits.
The county will host another meeting on the permit Nov. 10. It is taking public comment on the permit until November 18th. Comments can be sent to: ACHD Air Programs, 836 Fulton Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15233, or emailed to aq*******@*************ty.us.
