Aired October 12, 2006
In three years time, a drive down the highway near the Mittal Steel Industrial complex might not be a gray as it looks today. The company is taking steps to add some green to the landscape. ideastream's Lisa Ann Pinkerton has more.
Over a hundred years ago, a prairie covered the valley floor where the Mittal Steel Mill sits. But today vegetation is sparse among the slag piles and truck traffic. Mittal Steel wants to change that, by reintroducing native plants to its 950-acre property (see illustrations below). The company turned to Jim Bissell at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History to oversee the project. Under his direction, green buffer zones are being planted along the banks of the Cuyahoga River to soak up water running off the mill's property. Also, the large piles of fine black ash, a by-product of the steel making process, will soon grow eight-foot tall switch grass which Bissell says will do more than beautify the industrial landscape.
Jim Bissell: When the wind blows through it, particulates, sand, silt, dust will actually settle right out into the base of the plant. And the plant can actually grow through what ever settles out.
Mittal Steel spokesman Chuck Glazer says this reclamation effort proves the company's desire to to be a good neighbor.
Chuck Glazer: We do what's right, not just what is required.
However, Sandy Buchanan of Ohio Citizen Action thinks the reclamation project will do little to improve the air quality surrounding the mill.
Sandy Buchanan: We certainly don't object to them beautifying their property. But that is not going to solve the problem.
The problem, she says, are the emissions of sulfur dioxide and soot coming from the mill's smoke stacks. She says prairie grass will do little to stop those pollutants from blowing through the neighborhoods of 360,000 residents living within three miles of Mittal Steel.
Even though Mittal Steel is in compliance with pollution standards, Buchanan says its still the largest polluter in Cuyahoga County. She thinks the mill could do more to cut its emissions. But Chuck Glazer argues nothing more can be done.
Chuck Glazer: We already meet all maximum available control technology standards. We have for several years. There is no technology available that would do anything more than is already being done.
On this claim, Sandy Buchanan is skeptical. But she concedes, at the very least, the large green dust filter of native prairie grass will be better than what's there now. Lisa Ann Pinkerton, 90.3.
and Dr. James Bissell, Curator of Botany |
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