Stealing Back the Air, Water… and Steel
By Emma Christoff
It was a warm muggy Tuesday morning as I hobbled to my car. My teenager was eager to get to school, and I wondered what the air was going to smell like today.
Not 5 miles Southwest from my daughter’s school, sitting on the edge of the Monongahela river is Clairton Coke Works, one of the worst air and water polluters in the country. Decades of air and water pollution earned it the distinction of the, “biggest polluter in Pennsylvania,” and even the closing of Battery No. 15 does not make the air any easier to breathe. After a 2.2 million dollar fine in December of 2023, the plant still pushes out putrid hydrogen sulfide gas, along with the carcinogens cadmium and arsenic. The “Mon” doesn’t fare much better. Over 2 million pounds of pollution have been dumped into the brown murky river from the plant.
As a lifelong Pittsburgher, it does not surprise me that asthma is common in Clairton. One in 5 children develop the disease in the region. Two of my daughters and I developed severe asthma while living across the river from the Cheswick Power Plant just Northeast of Pittsburgh. In 2011, we moved to the old aluminum town of New Kensington, where we could smell the stacks when the wind was blowing just right. We fled the town just 6 years later, with a myriad of other health problems, including skin rashes, swelling, eczema, high blood pressure, and fatigue. None of us had skin rashes or needed these inhalers before we moved there. A few months after we left, we set the inhalers in a drawer and haven’t used them since.
My face in 2017
Now, on the way to school we pass 2 or 3 other factories. We make sure the outside vent is closed, otherwise a mix of metallic, sulfur, and chemical smells invade the inside of our van. If we must use the defroster, we turn it on only long enough to clear the windshield, and only in the “safe zones” between the factories. From the Duquesne Bridge all the way to Clairton, the air is sub-par at best. At its worst, it is a putrid smoke that makes all of us cough and gag.
As a teacher with a background in engineering design, I encourage my students to find solutions to problems. Clairton Coke Works, and the other manufacturing plants around our city pose problems to the residents that live near them. Some of the poorest, sickest, and most violent neighborhoods are directly downwind of these factories. These residents have little resources and often suffer from drug addiction, a sure sign of hopelessness and poor physical and mental health most likely caused by air pollution. Those that have the resources find a way to leave, deflating the home values and gutting the tax base.
It is obvious that assessing fines to the companies polluting our air is not working. In the 1960s and 1970s, when these regulations were rolled out, companies found ways to dump, toss, or bury pollution that would get them in trouble. It was in their financial best interest to get rid of it before fines would ensue, otherwise their profitability would suffer, possibly making them close their doors. This, of course, would create job loss which would make the town suffer in the same lost tax base.
What if we made clean steel?
Clean manufacturing processes are already being initialized in other industries. Forbes called this the “next industrial revolution.” If we rebuilt the steel making process, eliminating the need for coke, Clairton would not need to burn the coal down to make the coke. If that was not possible, maybe we could condense the particulate and chemicals that are released when the coke cools. Maybe we can develop a super air scrubber that takes all of the hydrogen sulfide gas released during the coke making process.
I realize this is a tall order, but if innovation can bring us the tesla coil, the 3D printer, and organ transplants, we can make clean steel. The average salary of an engineer is $100,000. For the same price as a 2.2-million-dollar fine, we can pay twenty-two engineers for a year's worth of innovation. If we placed financial incentives for these plants to clean up their operations instead of threatening them with fines, we may actually get there.
Let’s do this for our country’s economic health, and more importantly, for our children’s health. I can’t wait for the day where we can drive down the “Mon” river with the windows down. :)
Emma Christoff is a Pittsburgh based writer who also teaches and tutors math, engineering, and crochet. Her background in civil engineering design helped her develop an appreciation for the beautiful steel bridges that surround her city. She loves taking pictures of them and posts these pictures on Fine Art America with her daughters’ art. Her and her husband, and 4 daughters love their city and encourage anyone visiting Pittsburgh to make sure they ride the Duquesne Incline and grab a Permannies (Primanti’s) sammich when they visit. You can find her latest writing on urloved.mxsisters.com.
References:
https://www.publicsource.org/clairton-city-of-prayer-portraits-illness-trauma-advocacy-resilience/
https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/watch-live-springdale-smokestacks-coming-down/
https://www.indeed.com/career/engineer/salaries
https://www.monvalleyindependent.com/2024/06/07/u-s-steel-closes-portion-of-clairton-coke-works-as-part-of-settlement/
https://nextpittsburgh.com/latest-news/u-s-steel-closing-the-three-most-polluting-batteries-at-clairton-coke-works/
https://environmentamerica.org/pennsylvania/center/media-center/10-million-pounds-of-toxic-chemicals-dumped-into-pennsylvanias-waterways/
https://triblive.com/local/2-2m-fine-is-latest-entry-in-clairtons-air-pollution-history/
https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/apa-blogs/air-pollutions-impact-on-mental-health
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mitsubishiheavyindustries/2018/10/18/industry-2050-how-clean-manufacturing-is-a-win-win-proposition/
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