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Residents still choked up about Neville coke plant
Tuesday, January 16, 2001 By Don Hopey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Despite last year's federal consent agreement to clean up its smokestack emissions, the Shenango Coke Works on Neville Island continues to violate sulfur standards, according to downwind residents and an environmental group.
The group Clean Water Action said yesterday that Shenango violated daily sulfur emissions limits on 83 of the first 199 days after a March 3 consent order took effect -- or about 40 percent. The company also violated the monthly sulfur standards in each of the first seven months.
Jim Birsic, Shenango's vice president for health, safety, environment and law, said the company is reducing sulfur emissions and its record isn't as bad as it looks.
Instead of taking four air samples a day, the consent agreement requires continuous monitoring of Shenango's emissions, with readings every six minutes.
Even as the number of days in violation of the sulfur standard has increased, the average daily sulfur content of the company's emissions has declined from 48.1 grains to 44.4 grains.
As part of the consent agreement, the Terre Haute, Ind.-based company paid a $2.1 million fine, agreed to make extensive improvements to the sulfur control system on its 56-oven coke battery, monitor emissions daily and immediately fix any conditions causing it to exceed pollution standards.
It was fined $59,500 for violations of the new consent decree that occurred from March 3 through Sept. 30. Shenango also signed federal consent agreements in 1980 and 1993 but repeatedly violated those, too.
"I live close to Shenango's plant and we can still smell the pollution all the time," Ellen O'Connell Benedetto, a member of the Neville Island Good Neighbor Committee, said yesterday. "I'm concerned about the effect this can have on the children in the neighborhood and others with health problems."
Airborne sulfur compounds can aggravate respiratory problems, particularly in people with asthma and chronic bronchitis, and are a precursor of acid rain, which can damage lakes, aquatic life, plant life and property.
Myron Arnowitt, Clean Water's Western Pennsylvania director, said additional sanctions may be needed to make Shenango show real emissions improvements, including fines for violating county sulfur discharge standards that have not been enforced since the new consent agreement took effect.
"We are greatly concerned that the actions detailed in the consent decree will not be sufficient, as was the case with the prior consent decrees," he said.
Shenango, which employs 200 and annually produces 360,000 tons of coke for use as fuel by steelmakers, has already spent millions attempting to control pollution at the Neville coking facility, but has experienced frequent equipment failures.
During the March 3-Sept. 30 period, Shenango's desulfurization plant had breakdowns lasting more than one hour on 26 days.
In May, the company spent $500,000 for a new cooling tower, heat exchangers and other equipment to control sulfur emissions.
Arnowitt acknowledged that when the equipment is working properly it appears to be effective in reducing emissions.
"But breakdowns remain a big problem," he said. "The company may be having more good days when emissions are very low, but it's still having too many bad days."
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