An environmental group wants state regulators to tighten water pollution requirements for U.S. Steel to get the company to stop releasing oil from one of its Pittsburgh-area plants into the Monongahela River.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection cited the company twice last year for discharges of industrial pollution at its Irvin Plant into the Monongahela, a drinking water source for one million people.
The company reported to the agency that some of the spills could have been linked to an equipment failure.
Oily sheen on the Monongahela River near U.S. Steel’s Irvin Plant, in West Mifflin, Pa., August 2023. Photo: PA DEP
The DEP issued a compliance order in October 2023 requiring U.S. Steel to deploy absorbent booms, investigate the cause of the releases and implement a plan to fix any problems.
But the problem is still happening, according to the DEP. Lauren Camarda, an agency spokesperson, said in an email there was another release on October 10 from the plant.
The DEP recently proposed a water pollution permit that would step up monitoring and reporting for the facility at one of the facility’s drainage pipes, or outfalls, into the Monongahela.
Three Rivers Waterkeeper, an environmental group, wants the agency to do more. It’s asking the DEP to require real-time monitoring for the plant and to impose fines on the company.
“We want the oil releases to stop,” said Heather Hulton VanTassel, executive director of Three Rivers Waterkeeper. “[U.S. Steel] knowingly having a discharge that’s petroleum-based coming out of their outfall, it would be important for [the DEP] to include in their renewal process how [the company is] going to improve their technology so that doesn’t happen, and how they’re going to be able to monitor to assure that it’s not happening,”
VanTassel said the problems have been present for over two years and that community members have complained about the problem “for decades.”
She said the DEP needs to impose penalties on U.S. Steel for any past and future violations. The DEP has not fined the company for the recent oil discharges.
Captain Evan Clark, a boat captain for Three Rivers Waterkeeper, says he has pursued tips from locals about oil coming out of the Irvin Plant since 2022.
“These are pretty serious sheens,” said Clark. “When I’m boating around up there, my boat is running through a heavy rainbow sheen that can extend from one bank of the river to the other, literally for miles.”
In August 2022, an EPA inspector reported oil discharge from the plant’s outfall, or drainage pipe, and found “substantial rainbow sheening could be seen for approximately 3 miles downstream.”
In its proposed permit, the DEP wrote, “There have been multiple instances where the Department has noted an oily sheen from the discharge of Outfall 003.”
Amanda Malkowski, a U.S. Steel spokesperson, said the company conducts regular monitoring for any “unwanted material” released from the plant.
Camarda says drinking water hasn’t been affected so far. She said the DEP would review the comments it received from Three Rivers Waterkeeper.
