News

Efforts to Hold Erie Coke Accountable recall Lake Erie’s polluted past In 2017, I clumsily completed the Presque Isle Partnership’s final Bay Swim. It wasn’t pretty — lots of gulping and doggy-paddling — but eventually, I emerged (after nearly everyone else) and rinsed the seaweed from my skin. I didn’t think about what else I was rinsing off; what else I may have ingested. Most of us wouldn’t. We take clean water for granted. Here on Lake Erie, we can be especially laissez-faire, even when we learn of droughts or pollution elsewhere. Surely, we’ll always have clean water to drink,... Read More

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Local coke plant violates pollution regulations. Outraged citizens organize and speak up. The state’s environmental protection arm steps in. The coke plant is forced to cease operations. Within a couple of months, air quality surrounding the site of the now-closed plant improves. A community breathes easier. Sound too good to be true? It is. At least it has been, here in Erie. But in Tonawanda, New York, where Erie Coke Corporation’s (ECC) sister site, Tonawanda Coke (TCC), used to operate, it’s recent history. On July 20, 2018, The Buffalo News reported that the plant... Read More

Editorial Board: The public deserves a clear understanding of the health impact of the plant’s operations and assurance of its compliance with the law. If the announcement of new violations at the Erie Coke Corp. plant seemed numbingly familiar, that’s because they were. The state Department of Environmental Protection said since June 2017 it had “documented numerous and ongoing violations at the facility located near the channel entrance to Presque Isle Bay.” The plant, which transforms coal into foundry coke, failed to operate a hydrogen sulfide pollution control device, flared this toxic gas in illegal concentrations, and failed to prevent... Read More

The Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Northwest Regional office on Feb. 4 issued an administrative order to Erie Coke Corp. (ECC) demanding it take action to correct air quality violations believed to be “ongoing and continuous” during the previous 18 months. The order lists 59 regulatory violations Erie Coke committed between June 3, 2017 and Oct. 11, 2018. These violations included exceedances of opacity limits for emissions from the coke ovens, illegally bypassing required hydrogen sulfide absorption equipment, and violating quarterly continuous monitoring standards, among others. It appears that Erie Coke had a chance to avoid the order but was... Read More

A citizens group continues to prepare a challenge to Erie Coke’s request to renew its operating permit. The group called “Hold Erie Coke Accountable” is waiting for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to hold a hearing on the permit. But, that hearing has been delayed. It’s been one year since the operating permit for Erie Coke expired, but the gates are still open and the plant remains in production while the permit process takes place. Over the past year, officials from the DEP have been monitoring the Erie Coke plant and sifting through reports to determine if the... Read More