Shutdown in Gary

Ever since New Year's Day, a familiar sight has been missing from Gary, Ind. For the first time in years, there is no miasma of smoke over U.S. Steel's Open Hearth Mill No. 4--a complex of ten 65-year-old furnaces that annually produce 960,000 tons of steel and, as an unwelcome byproduct, 2,700 tons of airborne grit. Because it claims that it cannot curb the fumes right now, the company has shut down the mill. The decision could cost 2,500 employees their jobs in a city with an unemployment rate already approaching 15%.

At first glance, the move might seem to be a classic case of economics v. ecology. But the case is more complicated than that. It began in 1965, when U.S. Steel voluntarily entered into a legal agreement with Gary--which had the dubious distinction of having the dirtiest air of any U.S. city--to clean up its smoke. To do that, U.S. Steel pledged either to install antipollution equipment or replace all 53 of its open-hearth furnaces in the city with more efficient, less polluting basic oxygen furnaces by Dec. 31, 1973. When that date came, though the other U.S. Steel furnaces in Gary had been replaced, the ten open-hearth furnaces in Mill No. 4 were still in operation. So the company asked the state air-pollution control board, the city and the federal Environmental Protection Agency for first one six-month and then another six-month extension. Even though Gary's air quality was far below federal health standards, the extensions were granted. But to get the second delay, the company agreed to a consent decree in court, promising to finish the job by Dec. 31, 1974.

Paying Tribute. Last month U.S. Steel once again announced that it needed additional time to clean up Mill No. 4. The company argued that it had acted in good faith. But its new furnaces were not yet able to operate at full enough capacity to allow the old ones to be phased out and replaced. In granting a third extension, Federal Judge Allen Sharp ruled that the company must pay a fine of $2,300 a day for 90 days, or until the air-pollution problem was solved. The fine was meant, said an EPA representative, only as "an incentive to move." But U.S. Steel Vice President William Haskell said that it amounted to paying "tribute" to the Government, and the company shut down the mill "as a matter of principle." As a result, U.S. Steel has at least temporarily lost about 10% of its total output in Gary.

EPA Administrator Russell Train expressed "shock" at the company's decision, saying: "Our intention is to clean up, not close down this facility." The cost of the fine, he figures, comes to an additional 94-c- per worker per day, and 75-c- per ton of steel produced. Unemployment benefits, on the other hand, cost the company $7 per day per laid-off worker. Train urged U.S. Steel to "reconsider" its decision. But the company still refuses to pay the fine, and the EPA refuses to accept any compromise solution. Both sides apparently fear setting precedents that might influence their future disputes in other parts of the country. Meantime, the fires in Open Hearth No. 4 remain banked, though almost everyone in Gary would like to see them relit as soon as possible.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.