We need better air quality, now
Recent articles in the PostGazette beg the question — how will our air quality ever get better? (Dec. 24, “Polluted Air Again Plagues Clairton, Mon Valley” and “Why Tariffs Didn’t Save U.S. Steel Workers From Layoffs”)
The air quality will never get better with the Allegheny County Health Department blaming the problem on the weather.
Nor will it get better with U.S. Steel Corp. spending $700 million for half of a new, nonunion mini-mill in Arkansas, with an option to buy the remaining half, instead of investing $200 million in upgrades at its Clairton Coke Works.
Let’s be clear. Last June, U.S. Steel and the ACHD announced a settlement requiring the company to invest $200 million in upgrades at its Clairton Coke Works. It isn’t happening.
Last fall, Moody’s Public Finance Group cut U.S. Steel’s credit rating to highly speculative and its bond rating for environmental clean -up to one notch above substantial risk of default.
The company has slashed dividends, laid off workers, closed plants and cut 2020 capital spending by $75 million.
The Allegheny Conference, created in 1944 to clean up our smoky city, at a recent event partially funded by U.S. Steel to chart the Conference’s next 75 years, failed to mention air pollution.
ACHD officials have stated that if U.S. Steel doesn’t live up to the settlement, its Clairton Coke Works will be shut down. Clean up or shut it down.
For those who care, it’s time to take our campaign to the streets. It’s worked for other issues; it can work now.
HOWARD M. RIEGER,
Ph.D. Squirrel Hill