Dark cloud, blue sky: Freezing the Clairton project doesn't mean bad air
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The nation's recession continues to shoot tentacles in every direction, snatching victims in unlikely places. One of the latest is the $1 billion modernization of the Clairton Coke Works, an ambitious endeavor that promised to bring both construction jobs and cleaner air.
U.S. Steel announced Wednesday that it was suspending the project, on which it broke ground last fall, due to the economic downturn. That, in itself, is no surprise. Steel orders are way down and the company recently laid off 7,000 union workers, including 200 at Clairton. No wonder the Pittsburgh steelmaker decided to put off replacement of outmoded facilities with two new coke batteries and up-to-date environmental controls.
While the move is disappointing for the jobs it won't create, people who were eager for the project's air-quality improvements need not despair. As fate would have it, the steel slowdown has forced the idling of seven of Clairton's 12 coke-producing batteries.
The Allegheny County Department of Health also said yesterday that a consent decree remains in effect, which will shut down a number of the batteries, regardless of the completion of the modernization project. In fact, preliminary first-quarter pollution data, sampled near the Clairton plant and elsewhere in the county, show a general upturn in air quality, apparently due to the recession.
For longtime Pittsburghers, it's back to the future. A steel industry slowdown costs jobs but clears the air. It's the 1980s all over again.
First Published April 3, 2009 12:00 am
