On Monday, Edith Abeyta, who has been engaged in a lawsuit against U.S. Steel Corp. for five of the 10 years she has lived in North Braddock, breathed a sigh of relief.
“This victory … means I can look forward to the day when I do not have to check an air monitor to open my windows,” said Ms. Abeyta, one of several witnesses in the case brought by two environmental groups.
But for other residents who joined the 2019 lawsuit months after a devastating fire in U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works caused unabated pollutants to sully the air, many of the presumed benefits can’t come soon enough.
Art Thomas worked for Downtown-based U.S. Steel for 36 years, mostly in safety. Now, he worries living so close to his former employer made his wife sick.
“My wife suffers from sarcoidosis, which is something directly caused by breathing coal byproducts,” the 79-year-old Clairton resident said. “I am living in a war zone.”
Pittsburgh’s air quality has improved over the past decade, according to Allegheny County Health Department data — a trend U.S. Steel has highlighted in recent advertisements. But it remains the worst in the state and among the worst for metropolitan areas across the country.
U.S. Steel has said it spends more than $100 million per year on environmental compliance efforts at Mon Valley Works, which includes three local facilities: the coke making furnaces at Clairton, steel mills at Edgar Thomson, and the Irvin plant where steel slabs are rolled into sheets. Mr. Thomas and Ms. Abeyta said they haven’t felt an improvement.
“The only thing they did was change the color of the smoke from black to white,” Mr. Thomas said.
Still, he and Ms. Abeyta came to the Allegheny County Courthouse on Monday to celebrate the environmental groups’ victory. The settlement, which is still subject to a federal judge’s approval, forces U.S. Steel to idle a coke battery, pay a $5 million penalty to local environmental and health funds, and spend an additional $19.5 million renovating its coke facilities. As part of the agreement, U.S. Steel admits no liability.
All terms of the consent decree will apply to Nippon Steel Corp. if it completes its acquisition of U.S. Steel, announced in December.
In a Friday statement, U.S. Steel said “we regret that these accidental incidents occurred and believe this consent decree greatly benefits Mon Valley communities.”
The agreement forces the steelmaker to commit to lower emissions thresholds and greater scrutiny. Matthew Donohue, a National Environmental Law Center attorney who secured the settlement for PennEnvironment and the Clean Air Council, said he expects to get mail from U.S. Steel for the next five years with updates on several renovation projects.
During the course of legal negotiations, U.S. Steel experienced two additional outages that put surrounding communities at risk, Mr. Donohue said.
“I want to be very clear,” he said. “These breakdowns at Clairton are not accidents.
“I've spent five years litigating this case, reviewing documents, taking depositions. And if I learned one thing, it’s that these outages were the completely predictable result of decades of decay, neglect and mismanagement by U.S. Steel.”
Mr. Donohue said the case nearly went to trial, but settling provided greater benefits to the community.
“We were weeks away from trial,” he said. But a winning verdict would’ve only allotted $100,000 to local communities; the rest would go to the U.S. Treasury, he said. It also would have been impossible to secure promises like closing Clairton’s coke battery through a trial.
“We just couldn't have gotten a judge to sign off on [those provisions],” he said.
Clairton has seven remaining coke batteries in operation after closing three others last year, also in response to environmental concerns. The ovens, which get up to 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit, turn raw coal into coke, a fuel for blast furnaces. The process liberates impurities from the coal, concentrating it. Those impurities, which include hydrogen sulfide, are then captured in pollution control equipment.
Research after the Clairton fire, which disabled pollution controls for months, showed elevated cases of asthma events in the region. Outpatient and emergency department visits nearly doubled, according to a study by Deborah Gentile, medical director and clinical associate professor at Saint Francis University’s health science department.
The emissions, which exceeded permitted levels of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, also contributed to cases of heart disease, strokes, cancer, premature death and premature births, Ms. Gentile said.
“It is expected that closing one battery and the mandated upgrades to the coke works facility will significantly improve air quality in the Mon Valley,” she said by email.
Individuals and local nonprofits can submit grant proposals to the two new public health funds that will be created through U.S. Steel’s payout, Mr. Donohue said.
The $5 million payment included in the settlement could help convert the Cornerstone Care clinic in Clairton into a fully fledged primary care center. In the short term, home air filters could serve as one solution. The filters — which one organizer called “a bare minimum” — are already being distributed by Valley Clean Air Now, a local advocacy group.
David Meckel, a 27-year Glassport resident and Marine Corps veteran, said the settlement isn’t enough to force real change from a corporation that has “been killing you for over 100 years.”
The total payout was like being fined a penny for driving 100 mph in a school zone, said Mr. Meckel, another witness in the case. His only cause for optimism came not from U.S. Steel, but from its potential new owner.
“They're selling a broken factory to Japan,” Mr. Meckel said. “Hopefully, Nippon Steel will fix the problem and put the money into it and make it a clean, efficient business.”
He said it takes him twice as long to mow the lawn now because he has to stop to catch his breath. The 2018 fire is seared into his memory by its smell. “The stench was unreal,” he said.
At least for that incident, the settlement appeared to be a small measure of justice. As he left the courthouse Monday, Mr. Meckel gave the attorney Mr. Donohue a firm handshake.
“Thanks for being my hero,” he said.
Evan Robinson-Johnson: ejohnson@post-gazette.com and @sightsonwheels
First Published: January 30, 2024, 10:47 a.m.
Updated: January 30, 2024, 7:22 p.m.