"The company scraps planned Pennsylvania investments and will instead shut down three polluting batteries in 2023. The announcement comes a week after a study shows lower lung function in people living near its Pittsburgh-region facility."

"PITTSBURGH — A recent study found that people with asthma who live near a U.S. Steel facility experienced worsened symptoms following a 2018 fire that damaged pollution controls—and that even prior to the fire, a trend of lower lung function was observed in people living close to the plant.

About a week after that study came out, U.S. Steel announced it would renege on its promise to invest $1.5 billion in equipment upgrades that would have substantially lowered harmful emissions at its Pittsburgh-area plants while providing the region with up to 1,000 additional union jobs.

The project was announced to much fanfare in 2019, but in the fall of 2020 during a quarterly earnings call, U.S. Steel's CEO David Burritt said of the funds promised for the project, 'The key word in all of this is really the optionality. We can decide to put it in Mon Valley. We can decide to put it somewhere else.'"

Kristina Marusic reports for Environmental Health News May 6, 2021. [2]