EPA killed Weirton Steel
To the Editor,
I was employed by the steel mill for more than 33 years. I was director of energy & environmental engineering for many of those years. As such, I saw the tremendous drain on capital resources spent on environmental projects instead of plant modernization in competitive steel making technologies. For projects under my wing, it was not unusual to spend $50 million a year — not to mention capital for environmental projects by the two other directors of projects. One example, which is only the tip of the iceberg, was the elimination of coal from our boiler house. At one time, Weirton Steel burned 40,000 tons of coal a month. This not only provided jobs for mill employees, but many other local businesses, including Starvaggi Enterprises who both dug the coal from the strip pits and delivered it to our coal washer on Weir Avenue as well as haul the boiler ash away.
A huge number of other satellite businesses were also used to support the process — including maintenance efforts of numerous types. This was truly a dose of great trickle-down economics — everyone was a winner — until the EPA stepped in to get their piece of the pie. As is the case with most efforts to appease, the EPA first wanted to reduce fly ash emissions.
This was around a $50 million capital drain, plus much greater operating costs in the way of higher electricity costs to power the fans needed for the scrubbers, additional manpower to operate and maintain the facilities, more water for use in the scrubbers and more water to treat from the scrubber discharge and more scrubber waste to dispose. The list of extras is by no means exhaustive. The EPA tightened the requirements several more times: lower fly ash, lower sulfur (higher cost coal), etc. — each time Weirton Steel had a significant drain in resources that reduced our ability to compete.
Ultimately, coal was eliminated at the mill. The EPA killed the jobs associated with this process. As a footnote of sorts, Weirton generated 100 percent of its electricity at one time. This generation diminished over time until the nine steam-driven turbo generators were shut down. The story is much larger than this, but space does not permit. This same scenario was repeated in every department. There was absolutely no area that did not have multiple environmental projects the drained, capital, operating and maintenance money that reduced much needed capital to modernize.
The EPA did this under the guise of improving the health of the citizens. The correlation of health benefits is dubious at best. Many good workers of the day liked to have a few drinks at the local bars, some liked to smoke a few packs of cigarettes a day and their BMI was not in the optimum range. Needless to say, once these good employees lost their jobs, the mental stress and anguish became a medical health crisis for these good employees, their families and the communities.
Job training for new careers is not jobs.
David Velegol, Sr.
Colliers
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