It is reported that United States Steel Corporation had to repair a key piece of environmental equipment tied to one of its Gary blast furnaces last week after a malfunction that reduced steel production levels for a few days.

Mr Bob Simmons, deputy director for Indiana Department of Environmental Management's northwest regional office said that a dust collection system for the No 4 blast furnace failed January 7th 2012 and required maintenance before normal pig iron production resumed January 11th 2012.

He said that the system works as a scrubber to reduce harmful pollutants such as particles laden with heavy metals from gases before they can be recycled for other uses. US Steel alerted IDEM about the issues, although it wasn't an incident that required reporting.

Ms Courtney Boone spokeswoman of US Steel said that the company doesn't provide status updates on operations outside of its quarterly conference call with analysts.

Mr Jerry Littles president of United Steelworkers Local 1014 said that the union is starting an internal investigation into the matter.

Mr Simmons said that there were no emissions exceedances to trigger a permit violation, but production was shut down for safety reasons because of high carbon monoxide concentrations.

A complaint was filed on January 11th 2012 with IDEM. A person with knowledge of the situation told The Times that it's difficult to believe how the dust collector failure could not have triggered an opacity violation and believes the problem may require a longer term maintenance on the blast furnace.

Ms Phillippa Cannon, a US Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 spokeswoman, said that the entity's regional air program had yet to receive a complaint on the matter.

(Sourced from www.nwitimes.com)