On Aug. 11, the United States (U.S.) Steel Clairton Coke Works had a fatal explosion, sending 10 people to the hospital and killing three people on the scene. The steel mill produced coke, a vital component in steelmaking. Coke is made from coal that is cooked in ovens that can reach a temperature of 2,000 degrees. When it is made, it is transported to other steel mills and it undergoes a process to convert iron into steel.
This is not the first major incident at the Clairton facility. A worker died following another explosion in 2009. In 2010, 20 people were injured due to an explosion. In 2018, on Christmas Eve, a fire broke out and polluted the air at the plant for three months. In 2020, a former director of environmental health said that he toured the factory in 2017 and thought it was one of the most decrepit facilities he had ever seen.
On top of all the accidents that happened, the mill also had air pollution violations. Since 2022, they have been fined $56 million for air quality violations. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, it has violated the Clean Air Act for the past 12 quarters.
The cause of the explosion was the over-pressurization of a valve with water as it was flushed ahead of planned maintenance. At 11:00 a.m. in the reversing room of batteries 13 and 14 of the factory, the valves took on too much pressure and exploded, causing damage to multiple other areas of the factory. U.S. Steel stated that the valve had been leaking for two to four weeks before the incident. According to the company, there were likely errors in maintenance, causing the leak to become out of control.
Some parts of the factory are still being repaired today. There is no clear timeline for when the factory will be fully repaired.
Due to the company’s past incidents, the public has started to grow increasingly more concerned about the company’s environmental safety. Several environmental advocates are claiming that proper maintenance could have made the issue preventable, especially since it resulted in critical injuries and the loss of lives in this case.
The steel mill and company are undergoing further investigation as to what exactly caused the explosion and how they will move forward from now on. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is involved in the analysis of the explosion’s impact and cause. They are interviewing workers to find out if they know anything else about the explosion, documenting the heavily damaged site and collecting evidence to see if there was another cause of the incident. Collecting evidence could also help to prevent things like this from happening in the future. The investigation board has full access to the factory while they are looking for evidence.