Steel Company Must Spend $12M to Address Contamination at Operation

A steel producer must spend $12 million to mitigate hazardous waste violations at its Ohio facility.

The Department of Justice announced a proposed settlement with Cleveland-Cliffs Steel Corporation over releases of hazardous waste at its Middletown Works operation.

Under a proposed consent decree with the DOJ, Cliffs will take corrective measures to comply with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The corrective measures will address several site areas at the Middletown Works, a 2,600-acre integrated steel mill in operation since 1901.

This decree ends a civil lawsuit against Cliffs’ predecessor, AK Steel Corporation, by the DOJ and later joined by Ohio and environmental groups. Under a partial settlement, AK Steel conducted cleanups of two tributaries to the Great Miami River and agreed to perform investigations of other contaminant releases and evaluate other corrective measures.

Cliffs now agrees to implement the corrective measures when approved and selected by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The first two areas expected to be addressed under the decree are closed landfills that received wastes from Middletown Works, including industrial wastewater treatment sludges, steel production process sludges, and slag. The corrective measures at these areas are expected to cost $12 million. Thet decree will also require Cliffs to take corrective measures at other site areas.