pa1778data.pdf

U.S. STEEL DUQUESNE WORKS
HAER No. PA-115
(Page 35)
The installation of improved air quality control systems at
Duquesne occurred primarily at the mill's electric furnace and
basic oxygen steelmaking plants during the early 1970s. Both
installations were major extensions to previous air quality
control systems constructed in the early 1960s and both were
constructed because the original air purification facilities fell
far below local and federal standards regulating the amount of
particulate matter which could be emitted into the atmosphere
from industrial sources. The electric furnace plant, for
example, was releasing five or six times the amount of permitted
air pollution in 1970. In an effort to correct this problem, the
original dry cleaning system was expanded by embedding four
additional large hoods in the roof structure of the furnace
building for collecting airborne discharges from the five
electric furnaces. The hoods conveyed the fume through duct work
to an enlarged bag house where the solid particles from the smoke
were filtered by fiberglass bags. The extension to the basic
oxygen plant consisted of doubling the capacity of its existing
wet gas cleaning system. 48
Notwithstanding the prodigious amounts of money invested in
modernizing the Duquesne Works between 1953 and 1981, the
fortunes of the mill took a dramatic turn for the worse when the
bottom dropped out of the domestic oil and gas producing
industries in the early months of 1982. The basis for the boom
in domestic oil and gas production resulted from the creation of
the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1973.
Until its creation, oil sold on the world market for as little as
$2.10 a barrel. After the founding of OPEC, however, the price
of oil rose dramatically, reaching $34 per barrel in 1981. This
price increase allowed the U.S. oil industry, which had
significantly higher production costs than other oil producing
countries in the world, to compete very favorably on the world
market. As a result, there was an immense demand for oil well
General Superintendent of Plant Utilities, interview with author,
August 4, 1989; United States Steel Corporation,
Engineering/Research Division, "Operation Manual for WQC
Facilities, Non-Evaporative Recycle System, Blast Furnace No. 6:
Project No. 501-7565," (Monroeville, PA: 1980), 2-1 - 2-35; Metcalf
& Eddy, Inc./Engineers, "Operation Manual, Rolling Mills Division,
Primary and Bar Mills, Wastewater Recycle Facilities: U.S. Steel
Duquesne Works," (Boston, MA: 1981), 2-1 - 2-9.
48 "Duquesne Works Constructing U.S. Steel Developed Smoke-
Filtering System," Blast Furnace and Steel Plant 39 (March 1961):
268; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 30, September 12, 1970, March
18, 1971, January 14, 1972, December 4, 1973, March 30, June 11-12,
1974.