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Duquesne Mayor Nikole Nesby addresses the crowd at a noon rally outside U.S. Steel Tower Friday. At right, wearing a bow tie, is Belle Vernon Mayor Gerald Jackson.
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A seat at the table: Pittsburgh area activists ask for voice in U.S. Steel sale talks

Kris Mamula/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A seat at the table: Pittsburgh area activists ask for voice in U.S. Steel sale talks

Mon Valley community activists rallied out front of the U.S. Steel Tower Friday, asking — mostly politely — for a seat at U.S. Steel’s board of directors’ table upstairs, where stockholders approved the sale of the 123-year-old company.

The Breathe Project, a Hill District nonprofit umbrella group for environmental advocates, citizens, academics and others, sponsored the noon rally. Members of several environmental and social justice groups attended.

Nippon offered $14.9 billion for U.S. Steel, which has a blast furnace and coking operations in the Mon Valley, the target of many environmental law violations over the years. President Joe Biden has signaled opposition to foreign ownership of U.S. Steel, and the deal is undergoing a national security review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. A decision isn’t expected for several months.

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“We live in a sacrifice zone,” Qiyam Ansari, 27, board chair of Valley Clean Air Now, a Clairton environmental group, told about two dozen people at the rally. “All this so U.S. Steel can profit. Now is the time to say the Mon Valley is not for sale, our health is not for sale.”

US Steel's Clairton Coke Works is pictured alongside the Monongahela River on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023, in Clairton.
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U.S. Steel’s coke works in Clairton, the biggest plant of its kind in the U.S., has drawn millions of dollars in fines for air quality violations in recent years.

O’Hara resident Jan Harrison came to the rally with a sign reading, “Will your grandkids forgive you?”

“The health of the people who live near the steel works is bad,” said Ms. Harrison, 72, a member of the environmental and social justice committee at the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh. “U.S. Steel just pays to pollute.”

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Speakers at the hourlong noon rally did not take a position on whether the sale should be approved, but rather focused on the environmental clean-up that’s needed in the valley, comprising some two dozen distressed communities southeast of Pittsburgh. Childhood asthma and adult cancer rates were higher in those post-industrial areas because of the air and water pollution caused by the plants, several speakers said.

“The toxic legacy has to stop,” Breathe Project Executive Director Matthew Mehalik, 54, told the crowd. “Pay to pollute has to come to an end.”

Former Duquesne Mayor Nikole Nesby, the daughter of two steelworkers, said Mon Valley residents were entitled to be part of the discussions to sell the company because of health effects caused by years of pollution.

“We want people over profits,” she told the crowd. “Today, we are demanding a seat at the table.”

Kris B. Mamula: kmamula@post-gazette.com 

First Published: April 12, 2024, 8:47 p.m.
Updated: April 13, 2024, 6:44 p.m.

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Duquesne Mayor Nikole Nesby addresses the crowd at a noon rally outside U.S. Steel Tower Friday. At right, wearing a bow tie, is Belle Vernon Mayor Gerald Jackson.  (Kris Mamula/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Kris Mamula/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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