Coal-fired steel plants and urban air pollution

The United States hasn’t built a new coal-burning steel mill in nearly half a century. Stricter environmental regulations shifted some of that production overseas, while the latest steel plants adopted newer and cleaner technologies. But seven factories with blast furnaces remain, and they are contributing to poor air quality in the cities where they are located.

Those cities rank among the top 25 with the worst air in the U.S. for at least one of the two most widespread types of pollution, according to new data from the American Lung Association.

The research measured ozone and particulate matter, and when analyzed alongside data on emissions from the blast furnaces, reveal a strong correlation.

“These facilities are some of the biggest emitters of the pollution the American Lung Association’s report is measuring,” said Hilary Lewis, the steel director at the climate research group Industrious Labs, who recently compared the American Lung Association data with her group’s prior research on pollution from steel factories.

“Transitioning these coal-burning furnaces to cleaner alternatives reduces those emissions,” she added. ​“This is a key step that these communities can take toward getting off the worst-25 list and moving toward cleaner air.”

Last fall, Industrious Labs published the first facility-by-facility breakdown of emissions from every coal-based U.S. steelmaking plant, measuring output of ozone-causing nitrogen oxides (NO_x) and PM_2.5, the tiny particulate matter increasingly linked to everything from asthma, cancer, and heart disease to ailments afflicting the entire human life cycle: erectile dysfunction, newborns’ congenital heart defects, and dementia.

The analysis ranks the pollution from each steel factory against the emissions from other high-polluting facilities in a given state. Northwest Indiana’s three coal-based steel plants all ranked in the top 10 for NO_x and the top five for PM_2.5 compared to over 300 other major emitters in the state. The tristate Chicago metropolitan area where those facilities are located ranked 15^th for ozone and 13^th for year-round particulate matter on the American Lung Association’s list of more than 200 U.S. cities.

Among more than 600 major emitters in Ohio, Cleveland-Cliffs’ Middletown Works plant ranked ninth on Industrious Labs’ list for NO_x and sixth for PM_2.5. The Cincinnati region where it’s located ranked 14^th out of 208 U.S. metropolitan areas for annual particle pollution. The company’s plant in Cleveland fell in 15^th place for NO_x and seventh for PM_2.5, potentially helping drive its home city to ninth place on the American Lung Association’s nationwide list of 208 metropolitan areas with the worst annual particle pollution.

While Cleveland-Cliffs’ other location in Dearborn, Michigan, was only the 42^nd-worst emitter of NO_x in that state, compared with more than 600 other major polluters, the plant came in sixth for PM_2.5 on Industrious Labs’ list — directly mirroring its spot in sixth place on the American Lung Association’s list of U.S. locations with the worst annual particle pollution.

In Pennsylvania, ranked against more than 700 of the state’s biggest polluters, U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thomson Works facility similarly took 40^th place on Industrious Labs’ list for NO_x, but 21^st for PM_2.5. On the American Lung Association’s list, the Pittsburgh area where it’s located came in 12^th for the worst annual particle pollution nationwide.

“It just points to the fact that coal-based steelmaking is harmful to our health, and we need to be taking more action today to clean up these mills,” Lewis said.

The Trump administration is considering slashing federal programs designed to help steel giants such as Cleveland-Cliffs and Nucor Corp. clean up operations by investing in new equipment like electric arc furnaces to replace the old coal-fired units, the newest of which was built in 1980.

“The transition is at risk,” Lewis said. ​“All the threats to federal funding for things like modernizing American manufacturing do put the future of clean steel at risk.”

Worse yet, the American Lung Association data doesn’t even capture the full extent of the pollution, said Jack Weinberg, the steel adviser for Gary Advocates for Responsible Development, a nonprofit that advocates for upgrading the equipment at northwest Indiana’s mills.

“The monitoring data seems to understate the problem,” he said.

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency issued new rules aimed at requiring steelmakers to clean up ​“unmeasured fugitive emissions” — air pollution emitted when opening valves, or from leaks, that companies had not previously counted in reports to regulators. In March, however, the Trump administration invited companies to apply for full presidential exemptions from the rule for two years. Earlier this month, U.S. Steel became the first major American steelmaker to announce in a regulatory filing that it took President Donald Trump up on his offer. Cleveland-Cliffs and Nucor did not respond to emails asking whether they would join U.S. Steel.

Emissions from U.S. Steel’s Gary Works plant in Indiana are likely linked to as many as 114 premature deaths, 48 emergency room visits, and almost 32,000 asthma attacks each year, according to Industrious Labs’ October analysis, which uses the EPA’s CO-Benefits Risk Assessment model.

“Anecdotally, and I think more accurately,” Weinberg said, ​“people believe the pollution is affecting their health.” 

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/fossil-fuels/coal-steel-air-pollution-cities