GLASSPORT, Pa. — Channel 11 met Cindy and Dave Meckle as they were packing up their Glassport home to move out. They say the pollution from U.S. Steel, including benzene, is in their home and yard and it’s affecting their health.
“Coke Works is exactly a mile as the crow flies,” Cindy Meckle said. “Right over our house, right down the river. And that air comes right up the river.”
Dave Meckle showed us the white rag that turned black after wiping down the walls in their home and their outdoor windows and table.
“This is particulate matter,” Dave Meckle said. “This is benzene, this is hydrogen sulfide, this is arsenic, this is lead.”
The Meckles say they became concerned when several of their family dogs - different breeds - died at young ages, all from the same type of cancer.
In 2024, the Meckles hired Penn State to do a study of their soil to see if it showed anything connected to their dogs’ cancer and their health problems, including asthma and anemia.
“The technician at Penn State said, ‘do you have grandkids?’” Dave Meckle recalled. “He said, don’t let them play in the yard unless you put six inches of mulch on the grass to keep them safe.”
This report from the lab shows the Meckle’s soil has over 400 times the level of zinc and 50 times the level of lead that’s considered normal and that’s likely not all.
“My yard is a cesspool of poison,” Meckle added.
Lisa Graves-Marcucci is the executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project.
“We have a benzene problem,” Graves-Marcucci said.
Over 18 months, the EIP put EPA quality air monitors up at locations around the Mon Valley, including at the Meckles’ home.
The EPA’s “action level” for benzene is 3 micrograms/cubic meter. The Meckles say they had a reading of 16.7 micrograms/cubic meter at their home.
“We found out we have the highest levels of benzene in Allegheny County,” Meckle said.
11 Investigates accessed federal records and found the steelmaker has a history of not complying with the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
Since 2014, the Allegheny County Health Department says it has assessed more than $21 million in fines against U.S. Steel. Multiple cases are pending litigation.
Just last year, the county health department was one of the parties that settled a lawsuit against U.S. Steel for the 2018 Christmas Eve fire at Clairton Coke Works. That fire resulted in thousands of air pollution violations after the pollution control equipment burned out. Court records say, despite that, U.S. Steel kept operating.
“That facility, which is the largest in North America, operated for 100 days plus without pollution controls,” Grave-Marcucci said. “What were the workers breathing? What were the neighbors breathing?”
After that lawsuit was filed, U.S. Steel spent $17.5 million on equipment upgrades and agreed to pay millions more, including capital and environmental projects.
This week, fence line monitoring of benzene around facilities like U.S. Steel was set to begin, but the EPA proposed delaying this regulation until July of 2027.
In the meantime, the Meckles say they’re not sticking around.
“What you can’t see is what’s killing us,” Cindy Meckle added. “We can’t continue to do this anymore.”
We reached out to U.S. Steel for comment on our story. In response to the benzene study done by the Environmental Integrity Project, a spokesperson said:
“U. S. Steel has never been fined for exceeding benzene emissions standards in place under federal, state or county laws and regulations under which it operates. The Mon Valley Works’ compliance rate with the federal benzene regulations has been and is 100%. It is false to allege otherwise, as certain parties are attempting to do.”
In response to the fines levied against U.S. Steel, a spokesperson said:
“U. S. Steel’s Mon Valley operations have a compliance rate exceeding 99% for the tens of millions of regulated activities that happen every year. This is a testament to the hard work of the more than 3,000 employees who make safety and environmental excellence their top priority every day. U. S. Steel’s Mon Valley employees live and raise families in the area where they work in a critical national industry, and the care they take to protect our shared environment shows in U. S. Steel’s compliance rate and the improving air quality in the Mon Valley.”
In response to Penn State’s soil study at the Meckles, a U.S. Steel spokesperson said:
“Any assertion that U. S. Steel is the source of all heavy metals found in soil in the Mon Valley area is unfounded and ignores the fact that some are naturally occurring and the area has hosted industry and many companies for over a century.”
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