Bad steel news has clean-air upside
Hilton works shutdown means less pollution
March 11, 2009
ERIC McGUINNESS
The Hamilton Spectator
Hamilton can expect cleaner air this year at the expense of steelworkers being laid off or working reduced hours as ArcelorMittal Dofasco scales back production and U.S. Steel Canada idles its whole Hamilton Works.
Clean Air Hamilton chair Brian McCarry says shutdown of the former Stelco Hilton Works is likely to result in air pollution cuts similar to those seen in past strikes at the plant.
While there is no plan for special sampling to document the effects, McCarry says data from an extensive network of pollution monitors in the industrial area will be studied, but not until six to eight months from now.
The McMaster University chemistry professor says sulphur dioxide emissions from burning coal should drop considerably, along with road dust and exhaust from truck traffic as well as fugitive dust from moving coal and ore supplies.
He predicts significant drops in particulate matter, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, “all the usual critters.”
Denis Corr, a retired Environment Ministry staffer who is in charge of the industry-run Hamilton Air Monitoring Network (HAMN), agrees with McCarry about the expected impact, but also says, “There are no specific plans to look for it.”
Jennifer Hall, speaking for the ministry, notes that Hamilton is one of the most highly monitored airsheds in Ontario, with nine HAMN stations and three used by the ministry to calculate the Air Quality Index.
She says: “We would expect these air quality monitors to detect changes related to a reduction in manufacturing in Hamilton, specifically in particulate (black fallout) and this would be evident in the year-over-year trend data. The HAMN data is reported in Clean Air Hamilton’s annual progress report, which is usually released in June.”
Lynda Lukasik, executive director of Environment Hamilton, suggests homeowners who have been hit by black fallout in recent years pay close attention to what’s happening on their properties this year, to see if there is more or less fallout than usual. She believes the steel-mill shutdowns and production cuts might help officials identify fallout sources.
While black fallout, equipment failures and blast-furnace burps have focused attention on city industries in recent years, overall emissions from those plants is down sharply from past decades. Smog alerts are now most often the result of windborne U.S. emissions added to local pollution from cars and trucks. Hamilton is also downwind of emissions from the huge coal-burning Nanticoke power plant, which helps Ontario Power Generation meet peak demands for electricity.
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