News

The Pennsylvania Department of Environment Protection (DEP) issued four new notices of violation to Erie Coke Corporation in June, including the latest on Friday. It comes as the company is appealing the DEP’s decision to put the company on its compliance docket, which would restrict Erie Coke’s ability to renew its operating permit. The June 4 notice was issued for violations observed in Erie Coke’s quarterly compliance reports from Oct. to Dec. 2018 and Jan. to March 2019. The DEP also inspected Erie Coke on May 15 and found 13 violations, including visible fugitive emissions of unburned coke oven gas... Read More

The Erie Coke plant has a long list of violations from the DEP. These new violations were issued based on DEP’s recent inspections of the plant. According to DEP documents, they issued a violation on June 4th after reviewing the plants quarterly compliance reports. DEP issued another violation on June 5th after inspectors noticed visible fugitive emissions from the coke oven gas collector. On June 10th, the plant was cited for the percent of door leaks were also higher than the level permitted, along with two other violations. The latest violation which was issued on Friday is for fugitive emissions... Read More

The Erie Coke Plant Community Impact Update on April 16 opened with a short video produced by MenajErie Studio. If you haven’t seen it, take five minutes now. It’s powerful. I’ve watched the video several times, but I still get emotional. There’s something uniquely moving about seeing images filmed near Erie Coke, realizing that our neighbors may be living in dangerous conditions — and feeling the full weight of what it implies about our city that we’ve allowed so many questions to go unanswered. Those questions — and the lack of data regarding air, water, and soil pollution — were... Read More

Mike Campbell stood on a set of old railroad tracks near the Erie Coke Corp. plant and peered through a thin line of trees toward an open pit filled with piles of black coke and pools of murky water. The standing water is there every time Campbell, a Mercyhurst University science and biology professor, visits the east Erie bayfront site. “It appears that is the water table, where the ground is just saturated with water,” Campbell said. “There is nothing preventing that contaminated water from entering the water table and it would be a miracle if it traveled anywhere other... Read More