CEC Study Faulty -- Sinter Emissions No Factor in Study
Bethlehem Steel Corporation
For Immediate Release
BETHLEHEM, Pa., December 19, 2000 - In response to media inquiries concerning the allegation of the Commission on Environmental Cooperation that Bethlehem Steel Corporation's sintering plant is contributing to the creation of dioxins as an environmental threat, the corporation said:
We have reviewed the report of the Commission on Environmental Cooperation and find it flawed and based on unscientific data. Although dioxins are created in the sintering process in steel plants, the levels of dioxin generated by steel plants are not contributing to alleged health and environmental issues in northern Canada.
The report is based on "German data," which are not fully explained and, therefore, are meaningless. Instead, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in November 1998, said that nine sintering plants currently operating in the United States, including one at Bethlehem's Burns Harbor, Ind., Division, are estimated to emit 29 grams/year TEQ (toxic equivalency). EPA's data are based upon actual stack testing it performs on U.S. sinter plants. That level of emission constitutes about one percent of total dioxin emissions in the current national inventory of 2,745 g/yr TEQ.
More than 90 percent of the emissions of dioxin are created by six sources - municipal solid waste incineration, backyard trash burning, medical waste incineration, cement kilns burning hazardous waste, forest fires and secondary copper smelting. The steel industry, and particularly Bethlehem, is not a contributor to the dioxin issue cited in the CEC report, and we take strong exception to being included in it.
The report suggests that Bethlehem's Burns Harbor Division releases 57 g/yr of dioxin from its sintering plant. EPA's actual stack test data indicate that at most Bethlehem's contributions to the national dioxin inventory are 1.6 g/yr TEQ, an insignificant amount.
Bethlehem has had a formal policy of environmental protection since 1946 and is the only domestic steel company to mutually endorse the 10 environmental stewardship and accountability principles of the Coalition of Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES). Our environmental results place Burns Harbor as one of the cleanest steel plants in the nation.