pa1778data.pdf

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U.S. STEEL DUQUESNE WORKS
HAER No. PA-115
(Page 34)
Nevertheless, the robust condition of the domestic oil
industry in the 1970s resulted in large profits for U.S. Steel
and kept the works operating near full capacity. The
profitability of the mill during this period had a significant
influence on the decision by corporate officials to include
Duquesne in an $600 million investment that resulted in a major
upgrading of U.S. Steel's water and air purification technology
at its Monongahela Valley mills. The impetus for this investment
came from the increasingly stringent air and water quality
standards mandated by the federal Clean Air and Clean Water Acts
of 1963 and 1972 respectively.
In the case of water quality, federal standards were
implemented to control the amounts of suspended solids, cyanide,
ammonia, phenol, oil, and grease in water that was discharged
into the river daily from iron and steelmaking gas cleaning
systems as well as from rolling mill operations. The stringency
of federal standards severely limited the amount of toxic
substance that could be discharged into the river and forced the
construction of water quality control facilities to recycle a
great majority of the process water used in these systems.
Because the suspended solids, scale, and other substances
inherent in the process water also tended to plug up the
equipment used in gas cleaning and cooling water systems if left
untreated, the introduction of new water quality control systems
required a great expenditure of money into the research and
development of technology for chemically treating the water in
order to make it recyclable.
The novelty of the technology meant that the installation of
early recycle water purification systems were highly experimental
in nature. This was particularly evident at Duquesne where a
water quality control system constructed in 1979 at the blast.
furnace plant was forced to shut down after less than one year
because the amount of process water it discharged into the river
in order to keep the system's equipment clear of suspended solids
exceeded federal limits. As a result, an entirely new and more
successful system was constructed at the plant in 1980. In 1981
another successful water quality control system was installed at
the works 1 rolling mill facilities. 47
47 John P. Hoerr And the Wolf Finally Camef 137-40; "USS to
Build Blast Furnace, Install Environmental Equipment," Iron and
Steel Engineer 57 (March 1980): 69; Samuel P. Hays, Beauty, Health,
and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-
198 5, (New York: 1987), 77-80; United States Steel Corporation,
Engineering/Research Division, "Operation Manual For WQC Recycle
System, Duquesne Blast-Furnaces: Project No. 53 6-43 66",
(Monroeville, PA: 1979), 1-1 - 1-7, 2-1 - 2-35; Wayne Cadman,