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Editorial -- Better with coke Hazelwood is a perfect location for a new coke plant Friday, July 17, 1998
Old Pittsburgh is no more. The blast furnaces and smokestacks have largely been replaced by high-tech engineering firms and medical research laboratories. But Pittsburgh should remain a center of the steel industry, even if steel is no longer the backbone of Pittsburgh.
The city has the experience, talent, location and infrastructure to support the new, downsized metals industry. So when Philadelphia-based Sun Co. chooses the location for its massive new coke plant, we hope it sides with fellow Pennsylvanians and builds it in Hazelwood.
We shed no tears when the old LTV coke plant breathed its last smelly gasp in February. The plant was not in compliance with Environmental Protection Agency regulations regarding air pollution.
But Sun Co. says a new plant would turn hazardous byproducts into electricity instead of releasing them into the air. The company already has a state-of-the-art coke plant operating in East Chicago, Ind., that will provide up to 5 percent of the domestic steel industry's coke, and is looking to build an even larger plant farther east.
Hazelwood's rumored competitors are sites in Ohio and Kentucky. Those sites might be closer to the coal mines that provide fuel for the coke plants. Pittsburgh, however, has advantages that surpass any other site Sun might be considering.
The Hazelwood location is already owned by LTV, Sun's partner in the venture, and still has facilities for loading the coke onto barges. LTV could buy the coke and use it for its Aliquippa mill or numerous facilities in northeast Ohio. Pittsburgh has plenty of highly skilled candidates to fill the 200 jobs Sun expects the plant to produce, possibly including some of the 750 workers employed at the old plant.
There are legitimate concerns about any new industrial facility in Pittsburgh. It will no doubt require a hefty chunk of public support. It will also bring back memories of a Pittsburgh when clean air was not what it is today. But as long as the plant complies with EPA regulations, the city should do whatever it can to bring it to Hazelwood.
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