Shenango Inc. is facing substantial fines for serious and repeated air pollution violations at its coke ovens on Neville Island, according to the Allegheny County Health Department.

The 56-oven coke battery has a 25-year history of trouble controlling air pollution but its emissions problems have worsened since March, when the Neville Island Good Neighbor Committee started to observe pollution increases at the facility that cooks coal to produce coke used in steelmaking.

According to Health Department inspection findings, Shenango was able to comply with its combustion stack emission limits just 40 percent of the time in April. Its coke oven push emissions met pollution standards 36 percent of the time and its coke ovens were in compliance only 13 percent of the time.

"We're very disappointed with Shenango's performance since April. It's been abysmal," said Guillermo Cole, a Health Department spokesman.

"Enforcement actions with significant penalties will be announced next month after we tally up all the violations for the second quarter of the year."

Cole said Shenango's pollution controls have been so bad they don't even meet less stringent federal pollution standards for coke oven emissions.

Jim Birsic, Shenango vice president for health, safety and environmental law, said the coke producer has been trying to identify the problem but has been unsuccessful.

"We haven't been able to put our finger on it despite having investigated a number of issues," Birsic said. "We have ramped up our efforts on battery repairs but those will take some time."

Air pollution problems at the plant have been ongoing since at least 1980, with only a few periods when the aging plant has been able to meet cleaner emissions standards. Shenango signed federal consent orders in 1980, 1993 and 2000, mandating tough controls and repairs, and has been fined more than $2 million since the late 1990s for violating the conditions of those decrees.

The company, which employs about 165 people and produces about 360,000 tons of coke a year, has also spent millions upgrading its facilities.

Birsic said the March 2000 consent decree doesn't apply to the current problems because it covers only the company's desulfurization plant, which has been running well within pollution limits, and its stack emissions, which have been bad but are more reflective of the condition of the old coke batteries.

"The battery is at the point in its life when certain things need done and we're doing more this year than last year," Birsic said. "In the last part of 2004 and the first quarter of 2005, we weren't having any problems. But we think the winter was harder on the batteries than we've experienced in the last few years."

Cole said the violations over the last quarter were caused by deterioration of the coke batteries' end walls, flues and door jams, a breakdown in door cleaning equipment and poor coke battery pressure control.

Suzie Brindle, program organizer for Clean Water Action, an environmental group that helped establish the Neville Island Good Neighbor Committee in 1999, said Shenango has not been performing essential maintenance needed to keep the coke plant operating cleanly.

"[The Health Department] needs to bring a strong fine against the company for their disregard to the community's health," Brindle said yesterday in Avalon, where homes look out over industrialized Neville Island in the Ohio River.

"But more importantly, they need to ensure that Shenango has a comprehensive plan for achieving compliance and continue their stringent monitoring of the plant."