Seasons Greetings from our friends at US Steel.Submitted by Tomofpittsburgh t3_z25wu7 in pittsburgh
Ordinary_Pain1848 t1_ixfe131 wrote
US Steel as in agreement with ACHD staggers production on inversion days. Each coke battery will shut down operations for a few hours throughout the day instead of all operational batteries continuously pushing and charging ovens. This is in an attempt to help limit the PM2.5 emissions. Usually it’s 4 hour increments on each battery unit.
chuckie512 t1_ixffgra wrote
Very successful plan given how the air is still painful to breathe during these events.
Ordinary_Pain1848 t1_ixfhy4c wrote
If you have a better idea on how to curtail emissions from the 17 PM2.5 contributors in the Mon Valley may I suggest you apply for a job with ACHD. They seem quite confident that things are moving in a positive direction.
https://www.alleghenycounty.us/News/2021/Health-Department-2021/6442473822.aspx
Copied straight from the ACHD website, with link below:
“Note: On April 15, 2022, the Allegheny County Health Department learned that for the second year in a row, the county has met federal air quality standards for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) at all eight air quality monitors. This table shows the highest air quality concentrations recorded at any site over the most recent three years (based on maximum three-year averages), given by pollutant and averaging duration.”
https://www.alleghenycounty.us/Health-Department/Programs/Air-Quality/Monitored-Data.aspx
This is the 2nd time ever, prior to 2020 that these monitors have met the federal standard since their inception in 1999. Also of note is that only the Liberty monitor in all those years prior had prevented the county from reaching those standards. If things are as bad people claim they are, achieving such a goal would not be happening.
chuckie512 t1_ixfinqx wrote
Yeah, my suggestion is for us steel to move into the 21 century and use electric arc mills, or shut down.
We pay more in excess healthcare than USS provides to the community. We could save money as a community paying all the steel workers to retire.
[deleted] t1_ixfsxm9 wrote
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Ordinary_Pain1848 t1_ixfkt6w wrote
If it was that easy, USS would have shut Clairton and the corresponding plants years ago. The reality is that these 3 Mon Valley plants are US Steel’s cheapest cost per ton producer of steel in the company’s portfolio. Even cheaper then the new state of the art Big River Steel at Osceola, AR.
It being cheaper to pay for the steel workers healthcare by forcing the plants to close vs it being open is not realistic. Take away the tax base Clairton Coke Works provides and would the city be able to survive without falling back into Act 47 dependency from the state?
Braddock is still in Act 47 dependency even with Edgar Thomson Plant operating in it’s city limits. What is going to replace this enormous tax base? Our air is “cleaner” now. But our local economies tank to levels not seen since likely the 1980’s and big steel’s permanent collapse. How many of these former steel mill towns have been able to recover 40 years later?
Clairton Mill closes, backstreet burger probably closes. speedway closes. It’s a ripple effect that goes beyond just the plant itself. These businesses were not put there to sustain just off of the city itself.
Are the local communities going to pay for the railroad workers retirement too because the mill was forced to shut down? They were dependent on the mill to make a living, too. Local owner operator truck drivers delivering products or hauling products out of the mills?
As much disdain it may bring you to see these plants operational, they are a critical part of the Mon Valley’s ecosystem. You can’t just replace 3,000 well paying jobs overnight.
chuckie512 t1_ixfl4g7 wrote
>The reality is that these 3 Mon Valley plants are US Steel’s cheapest cost per ton producer of steel in the company’s portfolio
Because we're subsidizing them with our lives.
Is a couple dozen jobs worth giving children decades long health issues? If we paid them out to retire, they'd still be in the tax base.
alwaysboopthesnoot t1_ixfxahb wrote
The federal government already pays ie:we the taxpayers already pay for railroad workers’ retirement. https://rrb.gov/
There is already a special, entirely separate system with special, extra coverage.
Should we also have to pay for the cleanup costs that the EPA and ACHD now pays to do, plus pay for the catastrophic medical care for everyone in the valley who suffers, after private companies privatize their profits but make taxpayers pay for their losses, and then take their own profits and close things down, and bolt?
Various_Tackle3069 t1_ixh32qg wrote
If your defending the US Steel plant in clairton you can fuck right off - shut down the plant until they install adequate scrubbers it’s not complicated.
Ordinary_Pain1848 t1_ixh4vzm wrote
You can try to ignore the cold hard facts all you’d like, doesn’t change anything. Clairton Coke Works is not even the No.1 Polluter in Allegheny County according to ACHD themselves.
That plant provides a shit load of well paying jobs that supports a lot of families. 1-3 batteries are shutting down in the spring anyways. People won’t be happy until it’s gone and another EPA superfund brown field eyesore for people to bitch about.
chuckie512 t1_ixhhnxw wrote
So you're saying that US Steel won't even bother to clean up their mess and we have to pay for that too?
They're so stupidly subsidized they can do something for our community, like not kill people.
Ordinary_Pain1848 t1_ixhkfbv wrote
No, my point is that no matter what the fuck US Steel does people will always say it’s “not good enough.”
SamPost t1_ixitlnf wrote
Weekly violations of a 40 year old law that almost every other company in the US manages to comply with is "not good enough". Let's start there.
chuckie512 t1_ixhhtd8 wrote
It's been so effective, that the EPA is saying it's safe to be outside in up to 15 minute increments today. Thanks US Steel!
Ordinary_Pain1848 t1_ixhkr2d wrote
You should consider applying for a job with ACHD since you clearly think you can do better. You must have all the answers that no one else has. So please, show us the way!
But hey, what do the people who work everyday on fixing this mess know?? But no, apparently they don’t because some fucking anon on Reddit who read a couple articles clearly knows much more because GASP told them so.
chuckie512 t1_ixhqctq wrote
What work had ACHD done? Fined them less than a day's worth of revenue for all their exceedences?
Ordinary_Pain1848 t1_ixhy0pb wrote
ACHD has the right to shut down Clairton Coke Works if they deviate from the agreement. That’s what they have the right to do. You try to run that plant without No.2 or No.5 Control Rooms and they shut them down. Period. It’s either you run with those plants on, or you don’t produce at all and you take your plant to idle hot until you conform with the agreement. That’s the consent decree they signed. They continuously show no intent on improving things, they will shut them down.
Have you ever been inside that plant? Do you even know what goes on in the day to day basis there?
People complained about Shenango Coke on Neville Island for years and now it’s gone. The air quality hasn’t changed since it’s closure.
You wanna say ACHD isn’t doing shit but what has the EPA and DEP done for heavy industry who run amok in our country?
Dow Chemical since 2000 has paid $273M in fines but made $11.4B in 2021 alone despite having one the most prolific offenses ever recorded in our country. They knowingly poisoned our waterways and got a slap on the wrist, if that!
They make US Steel look like innocent children in comparison.
So please chuckie512, tell us with all your holy Reddit power might what you would do to fix this problem. You are so adamant you know what you need to do, put your money where your mouth is and show us!
I’m so tired of people spouting on the internet armchair QBing thinking their shit don’t stink and they have the be all to end all solutions to fix the problem.
SamPost t1_ixiu0qm wrote
You keep acting like no one has a plan. Here is the plan:
Upgrade the facility into compliance with the existing law, like every other coke producer in North America or Europe, or shut down.
End of plan.
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