A Gary environmental advocacy group has partnered with the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center to move forward in a lawsuit against U.S. Steel.
On Monday, Gary Advocates for Responsible Development sent a Notice of Intent to sue U.S. Steel Gary Works, claiming the corporation violated “fundamental Clean Air Act requirements” when completing the reline of the facility’s Blast Furnace #14.
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“We observe U.S. Steel every day, or at least I do,” Dorreen Carey, GARD president, told the Post-Tribune. “I certainly noticed that they were bringing in the big cranes and all that stuff early this last year. … We knew they had made the announcement, but we fully expected and thought they would get a permit, and they didn’t.”
According to a news release, the notice alerts U.S. Steel that GARD will file a lawsuit if federal and state air permitting laws aren’t followed within 60 days.
Pre-construction permit requirements ensure projects don’t worsen air quality and release pollutants already in the area, according to the news release. Permit requirements also set guidelines to reduce emissions.
Carey said GARD was concerned that the reline was not included in a permit to modernize operations at Gary Works. A proposed permit through the Indiana Department of Environmental Management is available for public comment now, with a virtual hearing scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 4.
Carey also said GARD has “no idea” how the reline impacted Gary’s air quality.
The ELPC is working with GARD as pro bono attorneys.
“Under the Clean Air Act, citizens have the right to sue corporations or the government if the government isn’t enforcing the Clean Air Act itself,” ELPC Senior Associate Attorney Kerri Gefeke told the Post-Tribune. “It allows the citizen to kind of step into that role. … This is just a procedural requirement, giving the company 60 days notice, which gives them a chance to provide information to refute the claims in our notice.”
In a statement to the Post-Tribune, a U.S. Steel representative said the blast furnace reline was a necessary routine maintenance project, which the company has reiterated since the reline was announced. The company statement also said relines are “regularly completed” at all integrated steelmakers.
“The reline is and remains separate from any other investment project coming into Gary Works,” the statement said. “It’s unfortunate that GARD wishes to sue U.S. Steel despite efforts to foster dialogue and find common ground. We remain focused on environmental excellence, regulatory compliance, and being a responsible neighbor in the communities where we live and operate.”
Carey said, on Sept. 24, GARD participated in a listening session with U.S. Steel to express concerns about “a variety of environmental issues,” and the group wants to set up another meeting with the company.
Since the blast furnace’s reline was announced, GARD and U.S. Steel have been at odds, with the Gary group wanting direct reduction and electric arc furnaces as cleaner technologies at the area mills.
According to the Association for Iron and Steel Technology, direct reduction creates sponge iron, which “is produced in a reactor by direct reduction of iron ore in solid form, utilizing natural gas as the reducing agent to produce pellets or briquettes.”
Direct reduction by itself cannot create steel, according to a previous statement from U.S. Steel, and direct reduced iron is a feedstock used in electric arc furnaces to produce steel.
U.S. Steel has previously told the Post-Tribune that the company would have to build a new electric arc furnace-based steel facility “from the ground up.”
GARD has previously found that U.S. Steel could install electric smelting furnaces at Gary Works, which could then melt direct reduced iron and remove its impurities. The molten iron could then be fed into the facility’s basic oxygen furnaces to create steel, according to the report. U.S. Steel has said that is not being done anywhere nationally or at the scale needed for Gary Works.
Gefeke said Gary residents have a long struggle with pollution from industries.
“They’re just trying to make sure that U.S. Steel, first of all, complies with the law,” Gefeke said. “But also that it’s a good neighbor to the Gary residents. It’s already an overburdened community with pollution, and it’s not right, not justified, especially for a community of residents that have given so much over the past 100 years to build the steel industry.”
Carey’s thankful for ELPC’s help, she said, and GARD couldn’t have done the same work without them.
Going forward, Carey hopes GARD’s work continues to foster conversations about the desire for green steel in Northwest Indiana.
“The modernization of the company will, in our opinion, keep it operating long beyond the life of this blast furnace reline,” Carey said. “And it will support the sustainability of the city of Gary and our workforce, our health, our natural resources and all of those things.”
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