Letter to the editor: ACHD must do more in Clairton

At the recent Allegheny County Health Department hearing on new regulations for the Clairton Coke Works, I was touched and shocked by the testimony from the people of Clairton and Glassport. What these folks have had to put up with is unbelievable.

The Clairton Coke Works produces more air pollution than all the cars and trucks in Allegheny County combined. With a continual record of hundreds of violations, this facility is dragging down the health of its neighbors and the future of our county.

The revised regulations are a positive step, but they are designed only to bring the facility into minimal compliance with federal standards. We need much more. Comparisons of this aging facility with state-of-the-art facilities in Slovakia, for example, show how far we are behind in terms of the use of modern emissions control for each of the coke byproducts.

The ACHD must force U.S. Steel to decommission batteries 1, 2 and 3, initiate fence-line monitoring and install state-of-the-art recapture systems for each of the byproducts of coke making.

It is in our national interest to continue to produce steel, but we should be doing this right. ACHD must demand a fundamental rebuilding of the facility. We have to ask exactly why ACHD is not protecting our health.

Brian MacWhinney

Squirrel Hill