pa1778data.pdf

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the plant might be closed for good. 36
U.S. STEEL DUQUESNE WORKS
HAER No. PA-115
(Page 29)
Adding to the uncertainty of the mill's future was the
enactment of smoke control legislation by Allegheny County in
1949 which threatened its ability to produce ferromanganese. A
common alloy in steelmaking, ferromanganese was produced for
consumption by U. S. Steel's Monongahela Valley mills at the
blast furnaces of the corporation's Isabella Furnace Plant,
Clairton Works, and Duquesne Works. A necessary by-product of
ferromanganese production was a dense, pyrophoric fume which
could not be entirely cleaned by conventional gas cleaning
methods. Consequently, much of the fume or flue dust had to be
emitted into the atmosphere through blast furnace bleeder stacks.
Under the terms of the smoke control ordinance, however, this
practice was precluded by stringent requirements that limited the
amount of flue dust admitted legally into the atmosphere to .5 or
less pounds per 1,000 pounds of gas produced. As a result, U .S.
Steel was faced with the choice of developing a comprehensive
system of cleaning ferromanganese gas or abandoning production of
the product in Allegheny County. The corporation experimented
with several methods of cleaning the gas with only limited
success. Finally, a successful pilot plant was built at the
Isabella Furnaces that both cleaned the gas and sintered the flue
dust into briquettes. A full-scale system was built at the
Duquesne Works in 1953. The great expense of building and
maintaining the system combined with the negligible reuse value
of the flue dust (i.e. the briquettes could not be recharged back
into the furnace because of their high alkali content), induced
the corporation to centralize its Monongahela Valley
ferromanganese production facilities at the Duquesne Works. With
this decision, U. S. Steel insured the immediate future of the
mill as a productive facility. 37
In the years following the installation of the
ferromanganese gas cleaning facility, the works underwent a
36 Kenneth Warren, The American Steel Industry, 1850-1970: A
Geographical Interpretation, (Pittsburgh: 1989), 287; Duquesne
Works, Steelmaking Division. "Steel Production Conference," 1;
Reference to the Kennywood Park announcement about the possible
closure of the Duquesne Works can be found in U. S. Steel Chairman
Edgar Speer's "U. S. is Being Legislated into a No Growth Society,"
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 8, 1976.
37 "Ferromanganese Cleaning Plant Starts Up on Duquesne
Furnace," Iron and Steel Engineer 30(August 1953): 136, 139; C. H.
Good Jr. , "Ferromanganese Furnace Fumes Cleaned Successfully, " Xr_o_n
Age 170(July 8, 1954): 95-7; "Duquesne Streamlines Ferro
Operations," U. S. Steel News 21(July 1956): 29-31.