Penn. DEP, US Steel Agree to Clean Up

John Matviya, environmental cleanup manager for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection announced that the DEP and US Steel Corp. have entered into a legal agreement to clean up hazardous waste at the former Municipal and Industrial Disposal Company disposal site in Allegheny County, Pa.

“US Steel was one of the companies whose waste was disposed at the site,” Matviya said. “US Steel has cooperated with DEP and has taken the lead on site cleanup.”

The site, which was closed by the Commonwealth in 1983, had accepted fly ash, demolition waste, and hazardous waste including coal tar residues, organic chemicals and paint wastes. The site operated from 1975 to the mid-1980s.

In the agreement, the state acknowledges US Steel’s binding commitment to complete the hazardous waste cleanup and is forgiving US Steel from paying its portion of the Commonwealth’s response cost which presently total more than $2 million. US Steel has spent more than $4 million on site assessment and remedial activities.

“Work on the assessment of the site will continue with the completion of the cleanup scheduled for 2005,” Matviya said. “The cleanup will remove the potential of the contaminants moving off the site and into the air, surface or groundwaters.”

Remediation activities at the site will include waste excavation and consolidation, treatment and solidification of waste, backfilling and recontouring, placement of a synthetic cover, revegetation, groundwater monitoring and long-term maintenance.

The agreement does not preclude the Commonwealth from seeking cost recovery from the site operator/owner or other responsible parties or other companies whose waste was disposed at the site.