July 26, 2008

Pollution monitors installed near Claymont Steel plant

Volunteers helped install two new pollution monitors near Claymont Steel on Friday, part of an independent check on soot and metal particle emissions from the troubled complex.

Denny Larson, executive director of California-based Global Community Monitoring, said the two portable systems would operate at various spots around the 92-year-old factory along Philadelphia Pike between I-495 and Naamans Road.

The company agreed to finance community monitoring efforts after state regulators cracked down on plant emissions in 2007. Residents have complained for years that dust from the plant was scratching automobiles, creeping into homes and threatening health.

Claymont resident Dee Whilden said releases from the plant remained a problem this month. Laboratory checks have shown that materials collected from affected properties contain most of the metals handled at the slab steelmaker's operation, Larson said.

State regulators learned in recent years that the plant was among the nation's largest sources of airborne mercury pollution. The mercury was traced to switches in scrapped vehicles from states without good controls on removal and recycling of the devices.

Global steelmaker Evraz Group SA, based in Russia, purchased the plant for $564.8 million last year. It previously was owned by an American investors' group and by an investment agency of the Chinese government, which purchased the plant in 1988 after a French company filed for bankruptcy and closed the operation.