Allegheny County yesterday fined the Shenango Inc. coke works on Neville Island $252,000 for gross violations of air pollution standards and ordered the company to curtail operations until it fixes the problems.

The county Health Department characterized the violations as "significant exceedances of both county and federal emissions standards," and took the unusual step of ordering Shenango to lengthen its normal 18-hour coking times to at least 24 hours by Aug. 1.

County Air Quality Manager Roger Westman said lengthening the coking times will reduce the number of "pushes" and therefore reduce the coke oven emissions, and is "a very significant step" that the Health Department last took in the 1980s to control high levels of visible pollution.

Westman said the fine was the largest imposed by the county in years for visible emissions and was based on the amount of emissions and how seriously the company's coke oven pollution controls have deteriorated.

According to the Health Department records, Shenango was able to comply with combustion stack emission limits just 40 percent of the time in April and its coke ovens were in compliance 13 percent of the time.

Coke is a fuel used in steelmaking. It's made from coal, which is baked in large brick ovens for hours to remove impurities. Emissions from coke oven "pushes" -- during which the cooked, hot coke is removed from the ovens -- exceeded pollution limits half the time during the second quarter of this year.

Jim Birsic, Shenango's vice president for health, safety and environmental law, said the company knew it would be fined but was surprised by the order to slow its operations.

Birsic said the company is still assessing the effects of the Health Department order on its operations. The company employs about 165 people and produces about 360,000 tons of coke a year, a production level that is sure to decline significantly if the order remains in effect for any length of time.

Birsic said he doubts the order would require the coke plant to shut down or lay off employees.

"The market for coke is still robust," Birsic said, "and we have a customer that wants the material and needs the material to sustain his operation."

Shenango's 56-oven coke battery has a 25-year history of air pollution control violations. The company signed federal consent orders in 1980, 1993 and 2000 aimed at correcting emissions problems. In addition to mandating expensive repairs, Shenango was fined more than $2 million since the late 1990s for violating the conditions of those orders.

Its most recent problems were initially identified in March by the Neville Island Good Neighbor Committee, a local citizens organization that was established in 1999 to observe and track pollution on the highly industrialized Ohio River island, four miles from Pittsburgh's Point.

"We're glad that the Health Department was responsive to our observations and took our complaints seriously," said Michael Tedesco, a Ben Avon resident and Good Neighbor Committee member. "I worry about my family's health when I see the black smoke pouring from Shenango's battery and stacks without the required pollution controls every day."