AK Steel To Pay $1.3 Mln Penalty For Air Violations At Dearborn Steel Plant

(RTTNews) - Under a settlement agreement with the United States and the state of Michigan, AK Steel Corp. will pay a civil penalty of $1.35 million for past violations of the Clean Air Act at its Dearborn, Michigan facility, implement a variety of procedures to reduce future violations and install dynamic air filtration systems at the Salina Elementary and Salina Intermediate Schools across Ferney Street from the plant, announced the Department of Justice, the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality or MDEQ.

The settlement will resolve 42 violation notices issued by MDEQ and two notices of violation issued by EPA alleging violations resulting from a wide variety of air emission sources issued against Severstal, the previous owner of the Dearborn facility. AK Steel purchased the facility in September 2014 and has taken responsibility for past violations and improving its compliance with environmental regulations.

The consent decree will require AK Steel to develop an environmental management system for the facility with third-party auditing every six months, annually inspect and continuously monitor the performance of the pollution control equipment at the facility's basic oxygen furnace and implement a fugitive dust control policy to prevent large particulate emissions into the adjacent neighborhoods. Upon full implementation of the consent decree requirements, particulate matter emissions, including metal hazardous air pollutants, from AK Steel should be reduced by approximately 100 tons per year.