The Allegheny County Health Department gave Shenango Inc. permission to resume normal production at its Neville Island coke plant this week, as part of a consent agreement with the company.

An earlier fine of $252,000 was reduced to $200,000 as part of the agreement and has been paid. Jim Birsic, Shenango's vice president for health, safety and environmental law, said production must be increased gradually, one oven at a time, so it will take more than a week before the plant is at full production.

The company agreed to accelerate repairs on 25 of its 56 coke ovens and to have all of the ovens on the repair list fixed by Feb. 15, 2006. Birsic said repairs are complete for eight ovens. That leaves five ovens that are shut down for repairs and another 12 ovens still operating but awaiting repair.

The coke producer last month was ordered to cut back on production by increasing its coking times from 18 to 20 hours to reduce its emissions, which had exceeded local and federal standards.

Under the new agreement, the county will assess Shenango's performance weekly. If compliance with emissions standards falls below 90 percent for the ovens not on the repair list, the department can order coking times to be extended again.

Suzie Brindle, program organizer for Clean Water Action, said the consent agreement seemed like a reasonable compromise and leaves Shenango with "a pretty good price to pay" for earlier emissions. The environmental group will continue to perform its own monitoring of emissions on the island, she added.

In a statement, the Group Against Smog and Pollution likewise said it is satisfied that the final agreement already appears to be improving air quality around Neville Island, but also expressed concern about the department's ability to enforce its regulations with only a single coke oven inspector on staff. One of the department's two inspectors retired last year as part of a voluntary buyout offered to county workers.

The Shenango coke battery's performance for Aug. 22 to 28 was "spectacular," with all of the non-repair-list ovens in compliance, said Guillermo Cole, health department spokesman. That assessment included at least seven of the eight ovens that have been repaired thus far.

"That's encouraging news," he said. "It means that those repairs appear to be working."