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Nearby residents vent concerns about plant planned for LTV site
Tuesday, October 06, 1998 By Don Hopey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
When LTV made coke in Hazelwood, residents could hear it and smell it, and those living closest to the plant, like Sam Strati, could even feel the heat.
Last night, Strati, 68, and two dozen opponents of a new coke plant in Hazelwood asked the Allegheny County Health Department to deny a permit for a new facility.
The opponents of the proposed Sun Co. coke plant picketed outside the Health Department building in Lawrenceville, chanting "No coke. Too much smoke," and wearing T-shirts bearing the message: "Fresh Air, Fresh Start."
"We've got lots of concerns," Strati said during the monthly meeting of the Health Department's Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee. "It was like an inferno there. Now they want to do it again. They must be crazy."
Sun Co. of Knoxville, Tenn., has proposed a $350 million plant in Hazelwood, on the site of the old LTV coke works that ran afoul of federal clean air standards and closed a little more than a year ago.
The proposed plant, which has the strong support of Mayor Murphy, would employ 150 to 300 workers and could produce up to 1.94 million tons of coke a year. The old LTV plant employed 750 people and could produce up to 1.3 million tons of coke annually.
Sun is also proposing a co-generation electrical plant.
"We're concerned that the proposed plant is being given a rubber stamp to push it through politically by the mayor and county commissioners," said Mary Lewin of Citizens Helping Our Community, a group formed to oppose the new coke works.
She said that 100 years ago, when the first coke plant was built in Hazelwood, nothing was known about the effect of coke oven emissions on health.
"Today we do know, and this is the equivalent of putting a coke plant in Downtown Pittsburgh because Hazelwood is such a densely populated area," Lewin said.
About 7,000 Hazelwood and Greenfield residents live within 1 1/2 miles of the proposed coke works.
A Health Department review shows the amount of particulates and sulfur dioxide, a component of unhealthy ground-level ozone and smog, released by the new plant would be equal to that of the old plant.
But the new facility would release significantly lower amounts of toxic chemicals, including ammonia, benzene and ethylene.
Roger Westman, director of the Health Department's air quality program, said the county has decided to treat the proposed facility as a new major source instead of a minor modification of the old LTV plant, as the company requested.
Westman said the county continues to have concerns about the proposed coke plant's boiler design, and hasn't decided if the emissions standards during the loading of the ovens should be relaxed as the company has requested.
Sun wants to start construction on the coke plant in June. It will take 18 months to complete.
"The permit is a death certificate," said Gerald Thiry, 34, a Hazelwood resident and the father of two small children. "I'll fight it until then, but if they issue it I'll move."
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