Air and soil pollution cited in lawsuit over old Donora Zinc Works
“The most publicized impact of the Donora Zinc Works on the local community was the Smog of 1948, which resulted in more than twenty deaths.”
That’s point number 55 of 134 in a 22-page class action lawsuit filed last week on behalf of three Donora residents against longtime Donora Zinc Works owner United States Steel.
It’s a filing that alleges not just air pollution but also “dust or the soil in their yards (containing) heavy metals in quantities that could imperil their health” that wasn’t found without “scientific analysis and sampling,” six decades after the Donora Zinc Works was closed, writes Morgantown, West Virginia, attorney Michael A. Jacks.
Jacks filed the suit Friday in Washington County Court of Common Pleas on behalf of “Louise Kowall, Donna Kopecek and Evelyn Vehouc,” as well as “all others similarly situated … who have been exposed to hazardous substances released into the environment in and around the site of the Donora Zinc Works” in Washington, Westmoreland and Allegheny counties.
The plaintiffs said U.S. Steel’s contamination of their homes violated the Pennsylvania Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act. They asked for a jury trial and seek compensatory and punitive damages.
“I hereby depose and state that while I do not have personal knowledge of all of the facts recited in the foregoing complaint, those of which I do not have personal knowledge were collected and made available to me by others, and the information in the complaint is true and correct to the best of my personal knowledge,” each woman stated in “verifications” dated Friday.
Jacks said Monday that he was not aware of any response from U.S. Steel nor of any dates for hearings on the lawsuit. A U.S. Steel spokeswoman declined comment.
USX Corporation is listed as a defendant along with U.S. Steel. The lawsuit refers to the Delaware registration of both U.S. Steel, whose headquarters is in Pittsburgh, and USX, which was the holding company for U.S. Steel from its merger with Marathon Oil in 1986 until U.S. Steel was spun off from USX in 2002.
USX is listed as having its mailing address at The Prentice-Hall Corporation System Inc. in Wilmington, Delaware.
No longer included as defendants are the state Department of Environmental Protection or the borough and its administrator John Bedner. DEP also declined comment while Bedner said Jacks approached the borough about joining as a plaintiff.
“We wouldn’t be included in the citizens’ lawsuit,” Bedner said. “We would have to file our own lawsuit. (Jacks) would be interested in talking with us if we choose to do that.”
As of Monday morning the matter is not on the agenda for Thursday’s 6 p.m. voting meeting of Donora borough council.
“We did discuss it in the work session (last week), that we were no longer among the defendants, but that was it,” Bedner said.
Jacks alleges that U.S. Steel, doing business as American Steel and Wire Company from 1915 to 1957, “dominated and controlled the operations of the Donora Zinc Works … including all activities associated with the generation and emission of hazardous substances such as arsenic, lead, cadmium, and zinc.”
The lawsuit says the complex covering approximately 300 acres on the west shore of the Monongahela River “was used as a smelting and processing facility for the manufacture of zinc products and materials, including the galvanizing of steel wire and other products produced at the adjacent (U.S. Steel) factory.”
Additionally, the lawsuit continued, “hundreds of thousands of tons of slag and waste material produced at the site were loaded on open train cars and dumped a short distance to the north.” Jacks said those materials “were improperly handled, transported and disposed of in the Donora area.”
According to the Donora Historical Society and Smog Museum, “zinc’s value as a protective coating was long known, and most of the Donora Zinc Works production was shipped to other mills of (American Steel and Wire) and subsidiaries of (U.S. Steel) where it was used to galvanize wire, nails, sheets and many other steel products.”
According to the lawsuit, the Donora Zinc Works became “the primary source of zinc for all of U.S. Steel’s manufacturing facilities in Pittsburgh,” including an adjacent steelmaking facility. What at one time was the largest wire mill in the world was opened by Union Steel Company in 1902 and operated by Union and its successors American Steel and Wire and U.S. Steel until 1967.
“The zinc furnaces were so hot that you could see heat rising from them in rivulets of distorted light, like fun-house mirrors,” Donora native and environmentalist Dr. Devra Davis wrote in 2003. “At its peak, the Donora Zinc Works employed about 1,500 men, who enjoyed an average workday of just three hours and yet received the highest wages in town.”
A historian who studied the town’s pollution told Davis that the day was so short because “nobody could have tolerated more time than that in front of those red-hot furnaces.” In a recent interview, Davis said, “Metals last forever unless they are remediated,” and that some growing plants can remediate the soil.
Six others also were involved when Jacks gave notice May 1 of his intention to sue, including Scott Beveridge, Joan Drudi, Gloria Massafra, Larry and Sandy Williams and Kenny Teagarden, but the Morgantown attorney said none of the six are part of the suit filed last week.
Massafra said Jacks had accumulated “pages and pages of information,” including soil and other tests in the vicinity of the old Donora Zinc Works, prior to his notice of plans to sue over problems continuing “to negatively impact the community and significantly increase the risk of developing latent diseases, such as cancer, plumbism and renal failure.”
Jacks alleged that “the Donora Zinc Works were never modernized during their operational period,” using horizontal retort furnaces for more than 40 years even as more modern electrolytic zinc processes and vertical retort furnaces became the industry standard.
“Additionally, during the operational history of the Donora Zinc Works, defendants failed to utilize available pollution control technology to adequately control their emissions, such as bag houses and electrostatic precipitators,” Jacks wrote.
“Donora was a victim of pollution during the period of operation which was not well understood by the public during that time,” Jacks wrote. “At every turn and in each circumstance challenging the potential health risks of the Donora Zinc Works operation, defendants staunchly denied such risks and affirmatively asserted that no human health risks arose from or were posed by the operation of the facility.”
Furthermore, “when defendants were faced with legal challenges alleging damage to local farms from pollution from the Donora Zinc Works, in the 1920s and 1930s, the defendants engaged in active deception by hiring scientists to create false and doctored evidence,” from the Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, the Industrial Hygiene Foundation “and other ostensibly independent entities.”
Jacks said the case is focused solely on emissions from the Donora Zinc Works. Owsuit could contact his office in Morgantown at 1-855-301-5989.