U.S. Steel fine for pollution in Pennsylvania’s Monongahela River called ‘meager’

Pittsburgh — Although U.S. Steel has been sanctioned for repeatedly leaking oil into the Monongahela River near Pittsburgh, clean water advocates say the penalties are too lenient.

An agreement signed with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Nov. 20 requires the manufacturing giant to pay $135,000 and implement stronger controls to prevent future petrochemical sheening discharges from outfalls at its Mon Valley Works – Irvin Plant.

U.S. Steel must install live video feeds and conduct daily and weekly inspections. It has 90 days to map and identify all areas where lubricants are used, and another 90 days to submit a mitigation plan to DEP.

DEP Secretary Jessica Shirley said, in a statement, “This agreement ensures that U.S. Steel takes concrete, enforceable steps to prevent further pollution of the Monongahela River.”

U.S. Steel spokesman Andrew Fulton said the company is “dedicated to the actions contained within (the agreement).”

MORE COVERAGE FROM PENNSYLVANIA OUTDOOR NEWS:

More than 30 predator hunts scheduled across Pennsylvania

Citizens groups battle to protect iconic Cumberland County trout stream in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania commission likely to boost keeper trout minimum to 9 inches

Local conservationists, like Annie Quinn, founder of the Mon Water Project, claim the actions don’t go far enough. The fine is “laughable,” she told Triblive.com. “I almost fell out of my chair when I read the $135,000.”

Three Rivers Waterkeeper (3RWK) Executive Director Heather Hulton VanTassel called the penalties “a step in the right direction,” but said that they “do not adequately or justly represent the long-term harm to the Mon River, and to the communities impacted by years of pollution.”

The Mon provides drinking water to about 1 million people.

3RWK has been monitoring and reporting intermittent petrochemical sheens on the Mon from the Irvin Works since December 2022.

“Community members living downstream have anecdotally documented issues for over a decade,” VanTassel said in an email to Outdoor News. “Just within the week of the consent order, community members reported five separate incidences of oil on the Mon to 3RWK.”

She notes that U.S. Steel has known about the discharges for years and should be required to remedy the problem immediately and pay additional fines for each day of discharges through their mandated monitoring systems with no grace period.

DEP investigated at least seven complaints of oil flowing into the river between August 2022 and April 2025.

Although U.S. Steel was ordered in October 2023 to find the source of the leaks, subsequent inspections found continued violations, according to DEP.

U.S. Steel is the third-largest U.S.-based steel producer and 24th largest in the world, according to World Steel Association.

It posted revenues totaling $15 billion in 2024.

The company has operated the Irvin Works on the Mon since 1938 as a facility that finishes, or rolls and treats, steel slabs produced at its Edgar Thomas Works in nearby Braddock.

The settlement agreement notes that the Irvin Works “stores and utilizes substantial amounts of lubricating oils and greases in the course of its normal operations.”

Oil can cause serious damage in a freshwater system, according to the American Chemical Society, which claims that the longer it remains in a lake, river or stream the more it changes and persists in the environment.

Although less research has been done about freshwater oil spills than those in saltwater bodies, impacts on aquatic life can be significant.

The Environmental Protection Agency is studying oil spills in freshwater mesocosms – which replicate outdoor environments in a controlled setting indoors – at a lab near Cincinnati, Ohio, and has found that insect emergence substantially declined in the oiled systems.

EPA researchers also observed changes in the stream periphyton community, including various kinds of algae, which are key food sources for organisms in streams.

The Mon is part of western Pennsylvania’s Three Rivers, joining the Allegheny near Point State Park in downtown Pittsburgh to form the Ohio.

The Mon has a long and storied history as an industrial waterway and still carries barges to and from the region’s mills. The Edgar Thompson Works was the first plant built on the Mon, in 1875.

While the river is beset with legacy chemicals from the steel and coke industries, since adoption of the Clean Water Act in 1972 it has been in recovery, and today offers excellent fishing for an array of species, from saugers to smallmouth bass to muskies.

A milestone in the Mon’s progress was marked in 2005 when the CITGO Bassmaster Classic came to the Three Rivers. Although the winning bag was a meager 12 pounds, 15 ounces in warm, low conditions, locals often brag about the quality of the smallmouths and catfish they catch.

The Mon was voted Pennsylvania River of the Year in 2012 in a competition sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and was runner-up for the same honor in 2022.