Clean Air and Good Jobs in the Mon Valley — Changing the Debate

Packed room at Clairton City Hall for the meeting on the Air Quality Crisis. Photo credit Rep. Miller

At 4:15 am on Christmas Eve, a fire broke out at US Steel’s Clairton Coke Plant outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania causing significant damage to the plant’s №2 and №5 control rooms and vacuum machines used to clean coke oven gases. Without the use of the damaged equipment the plant cannot perform desulfurization of the coke oven gas generated during the coke-making process. Repairs to that equipment will not be completed until at least May 15, 2019.

In the meantime, continuing to operate the facility will result in increased emissions of Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), a pollutant that irritates the nose, throat, and airways causing coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath, and is particularly dangerous for people with asthma or other respiratory conditions. US Steel has attempted to mitigate some of its SO2 emissions by substituting natural gas for coke oven gas, but the facility is still releasing dramatically elevated levels of SO2. As a result, air quality levels in the area have gotten so bad that in nine of the first thirty-five days of 2019 local regulators were forced to issue air-pollution warnings advising people with asthma and other respiratory illnesses to stay inside.