The United States hasn’t built a new coal-burning steel mill in nearly half a century. Stricter environmental regulations shifted some of that production overseas, while the latest steel plants adopted newer and cleaner technologies. But seven factories with blast furnaces remain, and they are contributing to poor air quality in the cities where they are located.
Those cities rank among the top 25 with the worst air in the U.S. for at least one of the two most widespread types of pollution, according to new data from the American Lung Association.
The research measured ozone and particulate matter, and when analyzed alongside data on emissions from the blast furnaces, reveal a strong correlation.
“These facilities are some of the biggest emitters of the pollution the American Lung Association’s report is measuring,” said Hilary Lewis, the steel director at the climate research group Industrious Labs, who recently compared the American Lung Association data with her group’s prior research on pollution from steel factories.
“Transitioning these coal-burning furnaces to cleaner alternatives reduces those emissions,” she added. “This is a key step that these communities can take toward getting off the worst-25 list and moving toward cleaner air.”
The analysis ranks the pollution from each steel factory against the emissions from other high-polluting facilities in a given state. Northwest Indiana’s three coal-based steel plants all ranked in the top 10 for NOx and the top five for PM2.5 compared to over 300 other major emitters in the state. The tristate Chicago metropolitan area where those facilities are located ranked 15th for ozone and 13th for year-round particulate matter on the American Lung Association’s list of more than 200 U.S. cities.
Among more than 600 major emitters in Ohio, Cleveland-Cliffs’ Middletown Works plant ranked ninth on Industrious Labs’ list for NOx and sixth for PM2.5. The Cincinnati region where it’s located ranked 14th out of 208 U.S. metropolitan areas for annual particle pollution. The company’s plant in Cleveland fell in 15th place for NOx and seventh for PM2.5, potentially helping drive its home city to ninth place on the American Lung Association’s nationwide list of 208 metropolitan areas with the worst annual particle pollution.
While Cleveland-Cliffs’ other location in Dearborn, Michigan, was only the 42nd-worst emitter of NOx in that state, compared with more than 600 other major polluters, the plant came in sixth for PM2.5 on Industrious Labs’ list — directly mirroring its spot in sixth place on the American Lung Association’s list of U.S. locations with the worst annual particle pollution.
