Nippon Steel takeover doesn’t mean safer, cleaner conditions, US workers and residents say | US news

It was two days before Father’s Day, and Trisha Quinn was wondering how her nephews, ages six, 12, and 17, would cope with their first without their father.

Timothy Quinn, 39, worked for 18 years at the Clairton Coke Works plant south of Pittsburgh, one of U.S. Steel’s largest manufacturing facilities and the largest of its kind in the western hemisphere. Last August, he and his colleague Steven Menefee were killed in an explosion there.

“His girlfriend called me and said they couldn’t find him,” Quinn recalls. “There was absolutely no communication [from the company]. We were calling all the local hospitals; I threw myself into the news to look for him. I was then told to contact someone from the union. “Later, some ladies from the company came to my mother’s house and shared the news of her death.”

Nippon Steel had acquired US Steel just a few months earlier for $14.9 billion.

Quinn has since filed A wrongful death lawsuit was filed against Nippon Steel and two other companies, alleging negligence.

U.S. Steel said that pressure built up inside the gas valve during the cleaning operation caused the valve to malfunction and caused a series of explosions. By the way The cast-iron valve that failed was manufactured in 1953, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, a federal agency.

US Steel’s annual revenue is over $15 billion.

“He was there when the explosion occurred,” says Trisha. “This isn’t right, you’re at work, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Nippon Steel has made no effort to improve clean fuel production at its three plants in western Pennsylvania’s Mon Valley, one of the most polluted areas of the United States for sulfur dioxide and gas, despite committing $11 billion to upgrade steel mills it purchased last year. hydrogen sulfide. Nippon plans to open a coal-only, integrated steel mill instead Arkansas.

US Steel has announced plans to reach net zero by 2050.

On a 14-mile journey down the Monongahela River in Braddock, U.S. Steel announced this month with fanfare that the massive 150-year-old Edgar Thomson Works would be building a project. new hot strip mill This will increase air pollution for local people.

“They promised investment, it had to be better. We and Clairton have the worst air quality,” says local resident and councilor Nathan Mallory.

He and other council members claim they were pressured by U.S. Steel to vote on a resolution that would allow a new sewer connection for the facility. locals anxious He said they were not informed about the full scope of the new mill project.

Mallory lives within earshot of the plant. While over 70% of Braddock’s population is Black, the town’s per capita income is just $15,500. Thousands of people live within a two-mile radius of the facility.

“Quoted for years [for pollution and other issues] Within US Steel; “There is an idea that it is cheaper for U.S. Steel to pay the health department than to put containment equipment (an existing technology) in existing blast furnaces or replace them with something cleaner,” Mallory says.

“We’re just feeding the industry. These are all corporate and government deals. When you try to advocate [for the community]everything was made complicated on purpose; It protects the industry instead of people.”

Steelmaking involves burning coal to make coke, which has a higher carbon content and can therefore burn at a higher temperature. Coal is burned and turned into coke at the Clairton Coke Works and then transported to the Edgar Thomson Works facility where steel production takes place.

US Steel says its equipment is constantly renewed and maintained.

“Based on the research results, we strengthened several safety protocols. Multidisciplinary teams collaborated to establish standardized best practices for industrial valve cleaning to ensure operational safety, prevent hazardous leaks, and maintain a controlled operating environment,” a spokesperson wrote.

“Employees have completed extensive training on these new program elements and procedural changes.”

But researchers have found that failure to invest in green-energy steelmaking facilities in the Mon Valley, the heart of U.S. steelmaking for more than a century, cost the region thousands of future jobsand what Nippon planned 2.5 billion dollar investment The health of thousands of residents and workers at coal-fired plants is being put at risk for years to come.

“Responsibility for worker deaths and deaths of many community residents each year Problems with pollution-related cancer, heart disease and lung disease are rooted in US Steel’s dependence on coal-based technology, combined with a ‘ride until the wheels fall off’ approach to its management. [Clairton Coke Works] facility,” says Matthew Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project.

“The only way to ensure a long-term, safer and cleaner future for Mon Valley workers and surrounding community members is to replace coal-based steelmaking equipment with clean, coal-free, next-generation technology with well-maintained new processes.”

Meanwhile, asthma rates increase in children living close to plants trio national rate. environmentalists to say US Steel’s own report shows that a new hot rolling mill would increase particulate pollution in the region by up to 40%.

The explosion that killed Tim Quinn and Steven Menefee wasn’t the only explosion at the Clairton Coke Works last year, either. Two workers in February 2025 wounded After the explosion in the chimney

Years ago, in September 2009, a maintenance worker at the facility died due to a gas leak. Less than a year later, another explosion at a coke oven left 15 workers suffering serious burns. U.S. Steel has pledged to spend $1 billion at its three Mon Valley Works plants to reduce pollution after a fire in 2018.

However, within two years this plan was realized. shelved.

US labor department in february cited U.S. Steel and MPW Industrial Services Inc. were fined $118,214 and $61,473, respectively, for subjecting their workers to unsafe conditions in the explosion that killed Quinn and Menefee. It concluded: “United States Steel Corp. failed to use required safety management and energy control practices for hazardous work involving flammable gas.”

Menefee’s family also filed a lawsuit against Nippon Steel, MPW Industrial Services Inc and Valves Incorporated, alleging negligence. Contracts were signed with the last two companies for work related to the explosion.

WE. Steel did not comment on whether compensation would be paid to the families of the two victims, but said: “We continue to cooperate with relevant government agencies and keep in mind the employees injured or missing in the August 11 incident.”

Today, the meaning of steel production has changed for the Quinn family, whose father and sons have been working in the industry for more than 60 years.

“[Tim was] a second generation steelworker. My father worked there for 42 years. My brother really enjoyed his job,” says Trisha Quinn. Tim worked as a heater, which meant monitoring the temperature in the coke oven batteries could reach 2,300F.

“His son wanted to be a steelworker, but we said, ‘No, that’s not an option.’”

“I don’t want to put his life in danger.”