USX Corp. has agreed to spend $190 million to clean up facilities and cut air pollution at its Gary Works, the nation’s biggest steel mill, said officials of the company and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
The announcement Wednesday is the final negotiated settlement of a cleanup program begun several years in which USX-U.S. Steel Group already has invested $90 million, said Charles Carson, vice president of environmental affairs for the subsidiary.
In addition to the $100 million added Wednesday, the total settlement includes a $6 million fine for more than 100 violations cited in 1994 at the blast furnaces, coke batteries and other facilities at the sprawling plant in Gary.
U.S. Steel and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are continuing separate negotiations on an estimated $25 million to $30 million cleanup of the Grand Calumet River that could start later this year, Carson said. It was not part of the USX-Indiana settlement.
The EPA delegated most air and water pollution enforcement to Indiana but has kept the Grand Calumet cleanup program.
The settlement was somewhat overshadowed by an explosion Tuesday night that injured three workers and crippled a blast furnace at the Gary Works..
The loss of the furnace will cost the mill about 84,000 tons of raw steel production capacity and 75,000 tons of finished-steel capacity each week, said Michael Gambardella, an analyst with J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. in New York.
U.S. Steel spokesman Ernie Glenn said it was too early to say how long it would take to repair the furnace and that the company was lining up outside sources of iron and steel to supplement production.
The accident unnerved investors. USX-U.S. Steel stock lost 75 cents a share to close at $34.12 on the New York Stock Exchange.
More Top Picks Chefman Turbofry Touch
The air pollution control program is intended to cut emissions of sulfur dioxide, ammonia, cyanide and benzene by 15,000 tons a year by the end of 1997. Sulfur dioxide is a principal ingredient in acid rain. Ammonia and cyanide are toxins, and benzene is a carcinogen.
The 3,700-acre mill–the nation’s largest with annual output of 7.2 million tons a year, or 138,000 tons a week–employs about 7,800 people.
Kathy Prosser, commissioner of the Indiana agency, said the pollution settlement was the largest in the state’s history and was reached without having to resort to the courts.
She said only about $90 million of the improvements are required by Indiana clean air standards. About $100 will be spent on voluntary programs.
Coke is a fuel manufactured by heating coal or petroleum products in air-tight ovens and later used to make steel. The process produces sulfur dioxide particles in the resulting smoke.
U.S. Steel officials said that since 1980 the company has spent $500 million on air and water pollution control programs in Gary. The latest settlement will raise that to $600 million.