AKSteel:union-buster and polluter

By Denise Winebrenner Edwards

PITTSBURGH - Steelworkers are not the only target of Armco/Kawaski Steel Corporation's (AKSteel) drive to maximize profits. Drinking water and the health of children is also on their hit list.

In an uprecedented action, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a June 7 order forcing AKSteel to pay for alternative drinking water for the western Pennsylvania town of Zelienople and clean up Connoquenessing Creek.

In September 1999, the multinational steel corporation locked out 650 workers, members of USWA 169, in Mansfield, Ohio. The corporation took over the town.

It has dragged the union and the local government through the courts, scabbed and imported a private army of thugs. But nine months later, solidarity and unity at USWA 169 is strong, with steelworkers and their families holding the picketlines, staffing the union hall and organizing support.

AKSteel has not only brazenly broken labor laws, it scoffs at federal environmental standards. In late May, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), the country's "Dirty Dozen" of pollution. Near the top of the list is AKSteel for endangering drinking water.

The EPA report says that in 1998, AKSteel dumped 32 million pounds of nitrates in the Connoquessing Creek. The creek runs by the AKSteel's Butler, Pa. steel mill. Workers at the Butler mill are not represented by the USWA, but belong to a company union. The small western Pennsylvania creek now holds the dubious distinction of being second only to the Mississippi River as the nation's most polluted waterway, according the EPA.

AKSteel's toxic dumping became a major health hazard that same year. Coupled with the 1998 drought, the high concentration of nitrates forced the nearby small city of Zelienople to ban use of the drinking water for five months.

High nitrate concentrations, according to the report, especially threatens pregnant women and infants because the nitrate contamination reduces the blood's ability to carry oxygen.

In 1997, the Butler mill ranked first in the country for nitrate pollution. AKSteel then broke its own record in 1998, when it released 31.7 million pounds.

The EPA lists AKSteel among its "Priority Hazardous Waste Producers" and includes its plants in both Pennsylvania and Ohio as "High Priority Sites for Corrective Action." The corporation's huge mill in Middletown, Ohio has been cited numerous times for benzene emissions.

According the EPA, "Long term exposure to benzene may cause blood and bone marrow disease, leukemia and chromosome changes. Short exposure can cause drowsiness, dizziness, headaches and loss of consciousness."

Benzene does its greatest damage to children and the elderly or those who suffer with heart and lung conditions. The life-threatening effects of benzene have been known for nearly 30 years and the EPA initiated regulations in 1979.

The EPA banned PCBs also in 1979 but that didn't faze AKSteel. Again at the Middletown mill, like Butler, the workers are represented by a company union. The federal agency cited the corporation for illegal disposal of electrical transmission equipment, which contains the dangerous chemical, PCB. The federal government settled this case with a slap on the wrist, fining AKSteel $11,900 in one instance and $56,000 in another.

In both the benzene and PCB cases, the EPA reviewed annual company records of hazardous chemicals. But residents around AKSteel mills have also initiated EPA action against the company. In 1997, Middletown residents called the EPA complaining of chest pain. An investigation indicated that respiratory ailments resulted from the company's illegal discharge of "kish," shiny graphite flaksteeles, from the AKSteel Basic Oxygen Furnace its steel-making facility, into the air.

Messages of support for locked out AKSteel workers can be sent to: USWA 169, 376 West Longview, Mansfield OH 44903.