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Zug Island steel operations chug along, despite ongoing air and noise pollution

DAVE BATTAGELLO, WINDSOR STAR / Updated: June 7, 2019

Explosions, fires and sudden blasts of charcoal-black plumes remain a feature of steel and other operations along the Detroit River that forever haunt Windsor-area air despite an international border.

Watchdogs in Windsor in recent months — whether due to increased business in the steel world or lack of environmental enforcement — report more frequent air and noise issues than in recent years.

“My sense is state and federal administrations (in the U.S.), largely under Republicans, have undercut environmental protections and enforcement,” said Derek Coronado of the Citizens Environment Alliance in Windsor. “Some companies have really taken advantage of that.

“But this is the 21st century, not the 1950s. If a company can’t be a good community partner they should pay a price for that.”

U.S. Steel Great Lakes Works has been listed as having “high-priority violations” every quarter annually for the last three years, according to enforcement and compliance records by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The status of operations have also been listed “non-compliant” since the start of 2016. It includes several failures to report to EPA on its emissions or exceeding allowable levels of dangerous pollutants, according to online federal records.

While much of the company’s Great Lakes Works operations are on Zug Island, several related entities stretch downriver near the shoreline that include power plants, coke operations — a plant owned by U.S. Steel turns coal into a form of charcoal that fuels its blast furnaces — and a steel-rolling mill. They contribute to air and noise pollution.

As concerns ramp up globally about climate change, the steel producer sits across from Windsor on a heavily guarded man-made island while pumping out an archaic blend of chemicals — aside from particulate matter and carbon monoxide — including benzene, mercury, methane, formaldehyde and arsenic.

A Canadian study pointed to Zug Island as the primary source for the controversial Windsor Hum which for years has disrupted the lives and sleep of countless local residents — primarily in west Windsor and LaSalle.

“It’s more constant than it used to be,” said Mike Provost, who oversees a Windsor Hum site on Facebook and measures sound each day from his home on the city’s west end. “I can only guess they have ramped up steel production.”

Provost over the past decade is among residents active in urging politicians and decision-makers to pinpoint the exact source of the problem — and end it.

“Somebody knows exactly what’s going on and causing this, but nobody speaks up,” he said.

“I figure there has to be technology available. I can only guess it comes down to cost. They should be raising their hand, saying here is the problem and fix it. It’s been 10 years now. They keep saying there are discussions, but I get tired of asking the same questions with no help.”

Meanwhile, three workers were hospitalized last August following a steel mill blast on Zug Island. A mid-afternoon fire on Saturday, Feb. 2 painted the sky black with smoke carrying for several kilometres.

Pressure releases that boom and fill the sky with black soot from blast furnaces are said to be occurring more frequently, according to some who work close to Zug Island on this side of the river.

One most notably occurred last fall in front of Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other dignitaries during the official launch of construction for the Gordie Howe International Bridge.

The black plumes are so filled with soot, U.S. Steel at its own cost disperses units to scrub down nearby buildings and employee cars on both sides of the border. The Star previously reported how workers at Canada Salt can have their cars detailed at the expense of U.S. Steel following the release of black soot.

Night-time operations across the river can resemble a hell on earth with the night sky lit up with flames and smoke from stacks visible for several kilometres away.

“Other than expressing disgust, it’s a struggle for local communities to deal with these types of operations because they don’t receive the support they should from higher levels of government,” Coronado said.

Why is Great Lakes Works allowed to continue operations seemingly unfettered?

A regional U.S. EPA representative told the Star the agency works in tandem with each state government regulatory body to enforce the Clean Air Act.

“States, in this case Michigan, have authority to enforce federal regulations,” said Josh Singer of U.S. EPA. “Inspections and enforcement are led by the state.”

He said the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) is responsible for enforcement.

U.S. Steel operations in the Detroit area over the past five years have been fined nearly $3 million under formal EPA enforcement actions, with another 27 informal complaints against the steel operation.

But despite the facility’s status with U.S. EPA remaining non-compliant the last several years with violations outstanding, the last fine against the company was in 2017.

The alleged violations at that time included “numerous violations of opacity standards; inspection, operation, and maintenance requirements; recordkeeping and reporting requirements; and good air pollution practice standards.”

U.S. Steel overall is the fifth-highest penalized iron-related company in the U.S. since 2000 at US$32.4 million.

But United States Steel, among 60 of America’s biggest corporations that include Netflix, Amazon, General Motors and IBM, avoided paying any taxes last year thanks to new tax rules under President Donald Trump — despite that the companies together earned billions in profits, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington think tank.

The Detroit District office of Michigan’s EGLE defended its actions on enforcement and inspection of U.S. Steel and related operations in the Zug Island-Ecorse area.

“EGLE Detroit District staff conducts inspections, observes stack tests, reviews records, and reviews reports to evaluate U.S. Steel’s compliance with state and federal air regulations,” said Wilhemina McLemore, EGLE’s supervisor of the air quality division inside the Detroit District office.

“If staff determines that U.S. Steel does not comply with applicable air requirements, the noncompliance issues are documented in violation notices.”

She acknowledged the facility’s recent violation notices and non-compliance record over the last several years, but noted state enforcement has resulted in agreed upon fines under “consent orders” that added up to roughly US$600,000 under four separate actions.

The facility continues to operate unfettered because it may have corrected the cited violations or they have not yet been “verified,” McLemore said.

“In other situations, the EPA does not remove the violation flag until an enforcement action has been resolved,” she said.

The facility can remain non-compliant or under high-priority violation status quarter after quarter — and for years until an issue is resolved.

EGLE does not track the number of black pressure releases — large plumes of black soot that sometimes fly into Windsor — which she indicated were due to blast furnace bleeder valve openings that occur when the pressure inside the furnace gets too high.

“The valves open to relieve pressure and to prevent damage to the furnace,” McLemore said. “These events are usually short in duration, less than a minute.”

Despite vehicles and buildings being caked with black soot, there are plume “opacity” rules that determine whether a violation has occurred, she said.

The bleeder valve must be open for at least one minute and 30 seconds for the six-minute opacity of the large black clouds to average greater than 27 per cent — the violation cutoff of the Rule 301 emissions standard.

“As indicated earlier, these events are usually less than a minute in duration,” she said. “When this is the case, the emissions associated with that particular event are not in violation.”

There is one current enforcement action against the company. Detroit District staff issued an enforcement referral Nov. 21, 2018. Staff are negotiating a consent order with U.S. Steel to address cited violations — of which no details were provided.

“This consent order will include a compliance program and a settlement amount,” she said.

At a minimum, Detroit District staff conduct two on-site inspections per year at U.S. Steel. Staff also conduct compliance monitoring through stack test observations, report reviews and record reviews to verify that U.S. Steel is complying with state and federal air requirements, McLemore said.

In regards to the Windsor Hum, “noise and vibrations are not defined as air pollution within the statute,” so EGLE has no authority to address noise pollution from Great Lakes Works operations on Zug Island, Ecorse or River Rouge.

Zug Island is named after Samuel Zug who made his fortune in the furniture industry in the 1850s and at one time bought the site for a home with his wife. But he abandoned the property due to the dampness of the marsh-filled land and by the mid-1880s sold it off to industry to use as a dumping ground.

Detroit Iron Works launched iron production on the island with a blast furnace in the early 1900s and added a second blast furnace in 1909 — among the largest of its kind at the time.

Great Lakes Steel Corporation — under control of National Steel Corp. — took over and expanded operations in the 1930s, adding a third blast furnace in 1938.

But that company became insolvent and U.S. Steel took over operations in 2003.

Questions from the Star about continued operations at the company’s Great Lakes Steel facility, despite several years of repeated violations and non-compliance under the U.S. EPA standards, were not answered by U.S. Steel’s head office in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Questions about the Windsor Hum also received no response.

But a spokeswoman for the company did provide a list of recent or planned upgrades to the Zug Island operations and two of its three operating blast furnaces.

“Safety and environmental stewardship are core values at U.S. Steel,” said Meghan Cox, the company’s manager of corporate communications. “It is our commitment to protect our employees and the communities in which we operate.”

She said over the past 18 months the company has invested more than US$20 million in “environmental capture and control equipment improvements” at its steel shop to reduce emissions.

“Last fall, we invested over US$5 million in environmental equipment upgrades on the D4 blast furnace off gas system which were aimed at reducing emissions,” Cox said.

“This year, we plan to take an extended outage on our B2 blast furnace, investing US$25 million to replace and improve our gas cleaning system to further reduce emissions.”

She offered no further comment on the facility’s operations or response to a recent photo provided by the Star of a huge black plume and large trail of smoke blowing over the river to the Canadian side.

The International Joint Commission deals with binational troubles along the Great Lakes. It does not necessarily deal with localized issues such as U.S. Steel operations, focusing more on what steel operations do across the Great Lakes or on transboundary pollution in general, said spokeswoman Sally Cole-Misch.

The IJC does not discuss reports until completed, so she would not say whether any industrial- or steel-related issues along the Detroit River are currently being reviewed.

The Great Lakes Environmental Law Centre based in Detroit has requested the latest data from the state on pollution exceedance occurrences by Zug Island steel-related operations, said Nick Leonard, executive director for the watchdog agency.

“We are keeping tabs on them, but there haven’t been any recent enforcement actions against them,” he said. “We are trying to get the emission reports to see how they are doing with compliance (on existing pollution limits). Then we will have a better picture.”

Leonard thinks the company has been allowed to operate the way it has in recent years due to “people being desensitized to it.”

“You see these incidents with fires, releases and stuff like that, but there has been nothing (on complaints) from residents or organizations the last several months,” he said.

Local MP Brian Masse (NDP — Windsor West) says complaints are still coming in regularly to his office about Zug Island-area operations with most pertaining to the Hum.

“I compare the whole area to Mordor from Lord of the Rings,” he said. “It’s an isolated area of power and indifference and everyone seems scared to tackle this.

“What’s needed is a whole comprehensive plan for (U.S. Steel-related operations on the riverfront). We have requested minister after minister go after this at that level. It has to happen at that level with an international treaty. Until then, you don’t have the clout this needs.”

Ideally, companies would step forward as good corporate entities to reduce the air pollution affecting residents in Windsor and Detroit, Masse said.

“In many respects, it’s actually going backwards,” Masse said. “People just seem to have a certain tolerance because we’ve grown up with this, but with things retreating there that’s a big concern.”

Documenting pollution

The U.S. EPA welcomes any photos or logs of pollution plumes from the steel facility or other Zug Island operations. They should be sent to Patrick Miller at miller.patrick@epa.gov.