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U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works in Clairton.
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County: Inspectors verify that latest incident at Clairton Coke Works posed no public risk

Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette

County: Inspectors verify that latest incident at Clairton Coke Works posed no public risk

The Al­le­gheny County Health Depart­ment con­firmed Tuesday that U.S. Steel Corp. has re­paired the elec­tri­cal prob­lems that sparked a fire and caused pol­lu­tion con­trol equip­ment to shut down for more than 15 hours.

As a re­sult, the health de­part­ment lifted an emergency order issued Mon­day that could have forced a com­plete shut­down of the coke works if re­pairs hadn’t been made within 20 days.

The fire early Monday dam­aged the des­ul­fu­r­iza­tion sys­tem, a key piece of the coke works’ pol­lu­tion con­trols and the same equip­ment that was de­stroyed in a much larger fire early Dec. 24.

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That fire caused the plant to ex­ceed sul­fur di­ox­ide, hy­dro­gen sul­fide and soot emis­sions lim­its on 28 days over the next three-and-a-half months while the equip­ment was re­paired or re­placed.

U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Work on Jan. 17, 2019, in Clairton.
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At 8:15 p.m. Mon­day, the com­pany an­nounced that re­pairs were com­plete and nor­mal op­er­a­tions had re­sumed after the second fire.

“Re­start­ing the des­ul­fu­r­iza­tion fa­cil­ity and min­i­miz­ing the po­ten­tial for im­pacts to the en­vi­ron­ment and com­mu­nity were of the high­est pri­or­ity for the com­pany,” ac­cord­ing to a state­ment re­leased by Meghan Cox, a U.S. Steel spokes­woman. “Dur­ing this brief sus­pen­sion of our des­ul­fu­r­iza­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties, mit­i­ga­tion ef­forts were de­ployed, and no ex­ceed­ances of sul­fur di­ox­ide were recorded at nearby air qual­ity mon­i­tors. . .”

The health de­part­ment con­firmed that no sul­fur di­ox­ide ex­ceed­ances had oc­curred, but en­vi­ron­men­tal groups said hy­dro­gen sul­fide lev­els had spiked in the hours af­ter the fire at the Lib­erty mon­i­tor, down­wind from the coke works, lo­cated 20 miles south of Pitts­burgh along the Mo­non­ga­hela River,

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The health de­part­ment said it re­mained con­cerned that the company has not in­vested in backup pol­lu­tion con­trol equip­ment and will press U.S. Steel to in­stall a re­dun­dant sys­tem that could be used to avoid re­leases of coke oven gases in the fu­ture.

Health de­part­ment in­spec­tors were at the plant Tues­day morn­ing and ver­i­fied that all sys­tems, in­clud­ing the des­ul­fu­r­iza­tion equip­ment, were op­er­a­tional.

Also on Tues­day, the health de­part­ment was granted per­mis­sion to in­ter­vene on the side of en­vi­ron­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tions in a fed­eral law­suit al­leg­ing the steel­maker il­le­gally op­er­ated the three Mon Val­ley Works fa­cil­i­ties af­ter the Decem­ber fire.

As a re­sult, the health de­part­ment said all le­gal rem­e­dies and civil pen­al­ties would be sought through the fed­eral ju­di­cial sys­tem, and the county will not is­sue any uni­lat­eral ad­min­is­tra­tive or­ders or civil pen­al­ties re­lated to the in­ci­dent.

U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works can be seen in this aerial photo taken on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, in Clairton.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
County to hold public hearing July 30 on Clairton Coke Works settlement

The en­vi­ron­men­tal groups, PennEn­vi­ron­ment and the Clean Air Coun­cil, charged the com­pany with vi­o­lating the fed­eral Clean Air Act in the days af­ter the fire for fail­ing to con­trol emis­sions of sul­fur di­ox­ide and other coke oven gases.

Go­ing the fed­eral court route is a stra­te­gic move that avoids the is­su­ance of uni­lat­eral con­sent or­ders for pol­lu­tion vi­o­la­tions. U.S. Steel has ap­pealed the last three such or­ders since June 2018. Those ap­peals are pend­ing.

“This joint ac­tion en­sures the stron­gest case pos­si­ble is brought against U.S. Steel, in­creases the re­sources avail­able to the Depart­ment and al­lows for the best pos­si­ble out­come for pub­lic health and im­pacted res­i­dents,” the health de­part­ment said.

Don Hopey: dhopey@post-ga­zette.com or 412-263-1983. Twit­ter: @don­hopey.

First Published: June 18, 2019, 6:48 p.m.

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U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works in Clairton.  (Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette)
Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette
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