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Prosecutors Say Granite City, Ill., Steel Mill Should Face Pollution Fine

Posted on: Friday, 16 September 2005, 21:00 CDT

Sep. 16--GRANITE CITY -- The town's largest steel mill and the mill's coke plant should be fined for belching too much pollution into the air in Granite City, according to a lawsuit filed in Madison County by the state prosecutors.

At the mill, damaged pollution control equipment has caused metal particles to escape into the air, the lawsuit by the Illinois attorney general alleges.

At the coke plant, benzene, toluene, xylene and naphalene -- all dangerous chemicals -- escaped during five days in September and October 2003, the lawsuit alleges.

The coke plant on Edwardsville Road produces the coke that fuels the blast furnaces at the steel mill on 20th Street.

"That facility is pretty old," Scott Mulford, spokesman for state Attorney General Lisa Madigan, said Wednesday.

Lydia Kachigian, chief counsel for the steel company's Granite City operation, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Mulford said the steel company already is working with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and state prosecutors to cut the amount of pollution going into the air from the mill and coke plant. He said the lawsuit was filed to help speed the improvements.

The lawsuit alleged the violations of antipollution laws cited have ocurred at various times since August 2003.

The steel operation in the summer of 2003 propelled 2.7 tons of slag dust in the air because the company did not make repairs to pollution control equipment, the lawsuit claims.

Unless the state and the steel company reach an out-of-court settlement, a judge will decide whether U.S. Steel should be fined and the amount of any fines.

The lawsuit also charges that the leaking oven doors at the coke plant have released too much pollution and that smoke from the oven contained more that the 20 percent solid particles allowed by law.

The lawsuit was filed in Edwardsville on Wednesday under the the Illinois Environmental Protection Act. Maxiumum pentalties under the law include a $50,000 for each violation of the act and $10,000 for each day the violation continues.

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Source: Belleville News-Democrat (Belleville, Ill.)

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