Record settlement reached over Monessen plant emissions
Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter
The Monessen Coke Battery, as seen from the Donora-Monessen Bridge in December 2017, is scheduled to resume operations in August.
Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
David Masur, at podium, executive director of PennEnvironment, addresses reporters Wednesday during a news conference in Pittsburgh.
PITTSBURGH – The world’s largest steelmaker will pay a $1.5 million penalty to environmental regulators as part of a settlement ending a federal lawsuit by an environmental group over alleged air pollution violations at the multinational corporation’s coke plant in Monessen.
PennEnvironment, which filed its lawsuit against Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal in 2015, announced the consent decree settling the case Wednesday during a news conference in downtown Pittsburgh.
“In the 21st century it’s totally unacceptable. Clearly the company has the financial means to address this,” said David Masur, PennEnvironment executive director. Masur added “clean air is a right, not a privilege. So while we’re glad for the part we played, it shouldn’t really have to come to a nonprofit group like PennEnvironment having to herd all these cats to get the solution that we’re announcing today.”
The group’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh, alleged problems at the Monessen facility. Those included that ArcelorMittal ran it for days or weeks at a stretch while a key air-pollution control device was out of service; more than 226 violations of limits for hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter; failure to put a required monitoring device in place; and emission levels as much as eight times the legal limit.
Masur said the settlement includes “what we believe is the largest penalty ever imposed in a citizen-initiated lawsuit to enforce the federal Clean Air Act” in state history.
The settlement includes a consent decree resolving enforcement actions by the Department of Justice, which represented the Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Environmental Protection. Those agencies intervened in the case. Under a proposed consent decree filed Wednesday, ArcelorMittal will pay half of the $1.5 million penalty to each of the two environmental regulatory agencies.
“DEP’s joint enforcement with EPA exemplifies an effective collaboration between federal and state agencies,” said DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell in a statement. “Citizen engagement, coupled with inspections and enforcement at the agency level, is key to effective oversight that fosters real improvements to air quality.”
The settlement also includes a $300,000 payment to a clean-vehicles program administered by The Community Foundation of Westmoreland County and improvements to emissions monitoring and controls at the facility.
“It’s an old plant. It obviously needed a major overhaul,” said Joshua Kratka of the National Environmental Law Center, an attorney for PennEnvironment. “And although they did put some money into overhauling it, they didn’t do nearly enough. Because literally, the day that it started operating again, complaints started flooding in to the Pennsylvania DEP from people living around the plant, and those complaints really still continue until today.”
An ArcelorMittal spokesperson said in an emailed statement that restarting the plant in 2014 “proved to be challenging, and the environmental performance during this period was unacceptable. Since then, ArcelorMittal Monessen has been operating under new leadership and working diligently to improve the facility’s performance through a series of investments and actions.”