The question in the cradle of American metalmaking: Would a new Japanese owner break the doldrums of postindustrial decay?<\/p>\n
\u201cI have faith. I know Nippon Steel is going to pull us through here, get us back up and moving,\u201d says lifelong resident Dorcas Rumble.<\/p>\n
Beset with illnesses and caring for a granddaughter with severe asthma, Carla Beard-Owens has all but lost hope. \u201cI had confidence years ago that they would change, get better air and help clean it up,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s still the same as it was when I was growing up.\u201d<\/p>\n
On whether Nippon will usher in change, \u201cat this point, I\u2019d rather see it than believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n
An August explosion at the U.S. Steel Clairton Coke Works that killed two people heightened the stakes, and a new mayor is raising that city\u2019s hopes. But many who live and work in Clairton are wondering if they can hope for a sustained departure from decades of disinvestment and persistent pollution.<\/p>\n
This story is a collaboration between Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source and The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
Blocked by one American president, approved by the next, Japan\u2019s Nippon Steel bought the American industrial icon for $15 billion last June, and pledged $11 billion in upgrades to domestic steelmaking. Nippon said $2.4 billion of that might reinvigorate Southwestern Pennsylvania\u2019s Mon Valley, where a half century of deindustrialization has left long strands of scarred riverside steel towns.<\/p>\n
Nippon hasn\u2019t said whether any money would go to the Clairton Coke Works, the largest facility of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. The sprawling plant, completed in 1916, has sputtered but survived \u2014 as has Clairton. For generations, residents have endured community violence, poverty and chronic air pollution<\/a> consistently ranked among the worst in the nation.<\/p>\n The Aug. 11 explosion, though, shook the coke works and sent shockwaves through the city, spurring renewed calls for greater oversight for the coke works that contributes roughly two-thirds of Allegheny County\u2019s industrial particulate air pollution and is often out of compliance with environmental law.<\/p>\n In November, Clairtonians rejected 16-year incumbent Rich Lattanzi and his campaign slogan \u2014 \u201cIf it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t try and fix it\u201d \u2014 in favor of former U.S. Steel foreman Jim Cerqua. The new mayor\u2019s mantra: \u201cIt is broke! We are going to fix it!\u201d<\/p>\n Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source and The Associated Press spent the past six months reporting from Clairton, long known as the City of Prayer, listening to a often-conflicted relationship to an industry that\u2019s provided jobs and collective identity for generations, but also illness and economic collapse. At a crossroads, some see the biggest chance for change in decades.<\/p>\n Dorcas Rumble, community health worker: \u2018It\u2019s all tied to the mill\u2019<\/p>\n Rumble peers out of the windshield across the rows of shuttered storefronts on St. Clair Avenue.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was growing up here, we had three movie theaters, four grocery stores,\u201d she says. \u201cWe had three banks, we had a jewelry store, clothing stores, a bakery.\u201d Now, Rumble says, there\u2019s nothing.<\/p>\n Rumble, 61, steers her car up a hill and through rows of crumbling housing originally built for steelworkers in the 1940s. \u201cThere used to be so many families up here, and now not so much.\u201d<\/p>\n She recalls her father as one of the first to be laid off from his job at the Clairton Coke Works in 1981, as offshoring swept American steelmaking and downsizing gripped the Mon Valley.<\/p>\n A community health worker and part-time jitney driver, Rumble organizes monthly food and clothing drives and a free health clinic for residents who need care. She helps people in the community with housing and rent assistance. She says of her neighbors: \u201cThey need everything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUs having this new mayor, we have hopes,\u201d Rumble says. \u201cHe gives us promises, and I\u2019m gonna hold him to them.\u201d<\/p>\n Rumble knows that no mayor can do it alone.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all tied to the mill,\u201d Rumble says, looking around. \u201cEverything\u2019s tied to the mill. Everything. \u2026 That\u2019s our only resource. It\u2019s the mill, it\u2019s always been the mill. \u2026 Hopefully now with Nippon coming, it\u2019ll start booming again.\u201d<\/p>\n Miriam Maletta, business owner: \u2018I need help bad\u2019<\/p>\n Rumble\u2019s sister, Miriam Maletta, opened her salon on St. Clair Avenue in 1984 when she was 21 and Clairton was bustling. \u201cBusiness was great, because that mill was thriving.\u201d At times, she worked until 2 a.m., sometimes bringing in $4,000 in a week.<\/p>\n \u201cNow I\u2019m one of the only ones left,\u201d she says, her business one of the few along Clairton\u2019s main street, and she struggles. \u201cI need help bad.\u201d<\/p>\n In a city dominated by a pollution-emitting plant, and a district long known for football, school administrators tap community partners to build a culture of collaboration and practical skills six months after the mill explosion.<\/p>\n In 2016, Maletta was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma. After six rounds of chemotherapy and 17 radiation treatments, she is in remission. \u201cWhatever went on in my body,\u201d she says, she believes the mill was a part of it. \u201cI think it was all from me living here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad worked in the mill. Never drank, never smoked. He was a professional boxer. Hall of Famer. He came down with stage four gastric cancer. \u2026 This is stuff that we have endured.\u201d<\/p>\n U.S. Steel says its safety is \u201cour core value and shapes our culture.\u201d<\/p>\n For as much as Rumble thinks the mill contributes to disease in her family, she says it\u2019s a worthwhile tradeoff to keep the city\u2019s economy afloat. \u201cIf they can do better in keeping the air clean, I mean, what else is there? How are we supposed to get any kind of revenue?\u201d<\/p>\n U.S. Steel should do more, Maletta says, to contribute to businesses like hers, and build Clairton back up. \u201dYou\u2019re a multibillion dollar industry. Why not help the people of this community?\u201d<\/p>\n A Clairton future with a thriving mill can also have rooftop gardens, a place to buy fresh food and something for the children to do on the weekends, she says. Workers could once again roam the streets and stop in at an eatery for a bite to eat. Their spouses could go to Miriam\u2019s for a hair cut \u2014 echoes of how it used to be, but not a return to the past, she says. \u201cI see it being new and different, but the mill is a common denominator.\u201d<\/p>\n Regulation, she says, \u201chas to be better. \u2026 I don\u2019t want you here if you\u2019re not going to help the community, if you aren\u2019t going to care about our health.\u201d<\/p>\n Jim Cerqua, mayor: Without merger, \u2018my town would be in trouble\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cPeople voted for change,\u201d Cerqua tells a full room of residents and supporters moments after being sworn in as mayor, replacing Lattanzi. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna work on bringing change.\u201d<\/p>\n Later, over a plate of Italian sweet sausage at the American Legion, the former coke works employee describes his vision. First he needs to balance the budget and spend Clairton\u2019s scant resources wisely.<\/p>\n He plans for an advisory council of youth who might inform veteran leaders like him, and he pledges to demolish crumbling buildings and infrastructure, and to push for redevelopment \u201cstarting anywhere, just pick a spot.\u201d<\/p>\n The new mayor also puts forth a vision of a mental health and recreation center, maybe with a basketball court, a walking track for seniors and a \u201clittle coffee spot\u201d to relax. He envisions a space in the back where kids might learn welding, carpentry and plumbing.<\/p>\n U.S. Steel, he says, must be a big part of making that vision a reality. \u201cThey have to be.\u201d Running Clairton without the plant \u2014 and the roughly one-third of city taxes it pays \u2014 is hard to imagine. \u201cIf U.S. Steel would have not done the merger and pulled out, my town would be in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n Cerqua says he met with the company and will do so routinely to discuss a vision for Clairton. \u201cI want to see more Clairtonians employed, and they do, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Brian Pavlack, steelworker: \u2018The future is looking pretty bright\u2019<\/p>\n At the bar, steelworker Brian Pavlack points to an image hanging on the wall of him on stage with President Donald Trump. A lifelong Democrat, Pavlack switched parties and voted for Trump hoping to extend the lifespan of steelmaking, but supported Cerqua, a Democrat, to help bring Clairton back.<\/p>\n Pavlack says he met with U.S. Steel representatives before the acquisition. \u201cThey even told us if Nippon don\u2019t take over, we\u2019re gonna leave the Mon Valley and go down south.\u201d<\/p>\n In November, the newly merged Nippon and U.S. Steel announced<\/a> they would invest at least $2.4 billion in the Mon Valley Works, with $1.1 billion already slated for a new hot strip mill and slag recycler several miles up the Monongahela River at Andrew Carnegie\u2019s earliest mill, the Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock.<\/p>\n In a statement, a spokesperson said U.S. Steel has already contributed more than $5 million over five years to organizations focused on health and safety, workforce development, environmental stewardship and community resilience in and around Clairton. That includes $500,000 for a new stadium for the Clairton Bears high school football team. The company said it also has active community advisory panels with community leaders \u201cto hear about their concerns and needs.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, U.S. Steel has made substantial investments in Arkansas, where labor is not unionized and where the company is building modern steelmaking facilities and recently committed another $3 billion. Nothing, so far, has been publicly earmarked for the Clairton Coke Works.<\/p>\n Pavlack praises Trump for slashing regulations on emissions, a move he thought best for the industry and his job, but he concedes, \u201ca new president comes in, you can reverse all that.\u201d<\/p>\n For now, though, he says, \u201cThe future is looking pretty bright in the Mon Valley.\u201d<\/p>\n Nippon\u2019s acquisition and investment is likely to extend the lifespan of Mon Valley steelmaking, and in doing so, lengthen a longstanding legacy of industrial pollution.<\/p>\n Carla Beard-Owens, grandmother: \u2018I take medicine all day long, every day\u2019<\/p>\n In November, Beard-Owens stood before Allegheny County Council. She didn\u2019t want the mill to close, she said, noting it still provides jobs, but it has to be held accountable. She told the council about her granddaughter, Nasyiah, who struggles with asthma and lead poisoning and tries her best to stay indoors to limit exposure, and about her parents, who died of cancer.<\/p>\n Carla Beard-Owens sings during service at Morningstar Baptist Church in Clairton, Pa., on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)\n<\/p>\n Carla Beard-Owens, right, and Jackie Wade, center, both of Clairton, celebrate on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, as the Allegheny County Council voted to increase the fees levied on U.S. Steel and other industrial facilities in an effort to buttress the chronically underfunded Allegheny County Health Department, which regulates the Clairton Coke Works. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)\n<\/p>\n Carla Beard-Owens walks to church in Clairton, Pa., on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)\n<\/p>\n Carla Beard-Owens plays with her granddaughter, Nasyiah Mason, outside their apartment in Clairton, Pa., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)\n<\/p>\n Show Caption<\/p>\n 1 of 4<\/p>\n Carla Beard-Owens sings during service at Morningstar Baptist Church in Clairton, Pa., on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)\n<\/p>\n Expand<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI lost a lot of loved ones and seen other ones pass because of this mill. Because they don\u2019t want to do nothing. Because they want to brush it under the rug and feed their pockets and not help the kids and the environment and the city. I\u2019m tired,\u201d she said at the council meeting.<\/p>\n Beard-Owens and some of her neighbors in Clairton took a bus Downtown to ask the council to increase the permitting fees for U.S. Steel and other industrial polluters, a move that would bring more money and capacity to the chronically underfunded Allegheny County Health Department, which regulates U.S. Steel.<\/p>\n \u201cI should still be able to go up steps, take a breath. I can\u2019t,\u201d said Beard-Owens, 56, to council members. \u201cI had surgery to cut my throat open to remove a mass that was huge that was connected to my vocal chords. I couldn\u2019t speak.\u201d<\/p>\n The airborne byproducts of coke production \u2014 PM2.5, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide and benzene, among others \u2014 have been scientifically linked by government<\/a> and private research<\/a> to an array of health conditions, many of which Beard-Owens and her family have experienced.<\/p>\n Beard-Owens has been diagnosed with thyroid and cervical cancers, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, and heart disease.<\/p>\n At night, she connects to a breathing machine, and takes a steroid inhaler each morning. \u201cI take medicine all day long, every day,\u201d she says, seated in her apartment in Clairton.<\/p>\n Until last year, her granddaughter spent afternoons at cheerleading practice on the fields across State Street from the coke works.<\/p>\n \u201cI had to keep bringing my inhaler every day to cheer practice because I could barely breathe,\u201d 9-year-old Nasyiah Mason says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t walk to school no more,\u201d Beard-Owens says. \u201cShe don\u2019t barely go outside.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy is it that we got to keep dealing with this, generation after generation after generation?\u201d<\/p>\n The childhood asthma rate in Clairton is 22.4%, roughly triple the national average. Of Clairton\u2019s children with asthma, researcher Dr. Deborah Gentile explains, 60% have poor control. \u201cThat means they\u2019re having trouble sleeping at night, they\u2019re missing school because they\u2019re sick, they\u2019re running to the emergency room or the doctors, they\u2019re not participating in activities.\u201d<\/p>\n Coke oven emissions are classified<\/a> by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a known human carcinogen. Clairton\u2019s lifetime cancer risk is 2.3 times the EPA\u2019s acceptable limit, and the coke works contributes about 98.7% of the estimated excess risk, according<\/a> to analysis by ProPublica.<\/p>\n The Clairton Coke Works \u201chas a tremendous impact\u201d on human health, and asthma is just part of the picture, Gentile says. Cardiovascular problems like high blood pressure and congestive heart failure have been proven to be caused by exposure to air pollution, she says, and there\u2019s links between neurologic conditions and endocrine disease like diabetes, premature birth, low birth weight and premature death.<\/p>\n That evening in November, County Council voted to approve a fee increase. It was a small blip in a long legacy of industrial pollution, but Beard-Owens felt victorious.<\/p>\n Jackie Wade, resident: A black hole with one light<\/p>\n On the bus ride back from County Council\u2019s meeting to Clairton, Jackie Wade cheers. \u201cWe won!\u201d She dances in her seat, singing in the dark.<\/p>\n Wade moved to Clairton as a teenager in 1969 and experienced decades of industrial decline. Clairton\u2019s slow slump \u201cwas like death row,\u201d she says, and community violence and poverty became normal. When the battery exploded, she started to see that inertia break. \u201cIt got people thinking, we could\u2019ve been gone right there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in that black hole in space,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re wanting out so bad to show our city can be just like everywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n She wishes the community had more opportunity to talk with Nippon before the deal. \u201cWhat are some of the things that will change in our community and is it going to be based on that area down there where the mill sits or are they willing to look at some things that we need in our community or that people in the Mon Valley need?\u201d And who will pay to meet those needs?<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770848709_145_US_Steel_Plant_Explosion-The_Community_23252.jpg\")
The coal fields at U.S. Steel\u2019s Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)<\/p>\n![\"Dorcas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770848710_161_US_Steel_Plant_Explosion-The_Community_60877.jpg\")
Dorcas Rumble, a community health worker, looks out at rows of deteriorating housing originally built for steelworkers in the 1940\u2019s, in Clairton, Pa., on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)<\/p>\n![\"Volunteers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770848710_281_US_Steel_Plant_Explosion-The_Community_26521.jpg\")
Volunteers with the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank distribute food to residents in Clairton, Pa., on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)<\/p>\n![\"Miriam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770848711_254_US_Steel_Plant_Explosion-The_Community_60773.jpg\")
Miriam Maletta pauses while working in her salon on St. Clair Avenue beneath a portrait of her mother and father, a former steelworker and professional boxer who died of cancer, in Clairton, Pa., on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)<\/p>\n![\"Clairton](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770848711_723_US_Steel_Plant_Explosion-The_Community_70439.jpg\")
Clairton Mayor Jim Cerqua sits at the bar at the American Legion in Clairton, Pa. with newly elected city council member Marla Bradford, his running mate, on Monday, Jan. 5, 2026. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)<\/p>\n![\"Carla](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770848712_482_US_Steel_Plant_Explosion-The_Community_29544.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Carla](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770848713_186_US_Steel_Plant_Explosion-The_Community_38366.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Carla](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770848713_150_US_Steel_Plant_Explosion-The_Community_36802.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Carla](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770848714_21_US_Steel_Plant_Explosion-The_Community_02817.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Youth](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770848715_275_US_Steel_Plant_Explosion-The_Community_66589-1.jpg\")
Youth football players practice near U.S. Steel\u2019s Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)<\/p>\n
![\"Youth](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770848715_205_US_Steel_Plant_Explosion-The_Community_34523.jpg\")
Youth football players stand in the rain at practice across the street from the Clairton Coke Works in Clairton, Pa., on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)<\/p>\n![\"Clairton](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770848716_398_US_Steel_Plant_Explosion-The_Community_59227.jpg\")
Clairton High School football players celebrate in the locker room after winning the WPIAL Championship at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)<\/p>\n![\"Sunday](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770848716_287_US_Steel_Plant_Explosion-The_Community_28991.jpg\")
Sunday service at Morningstar Baptist Church in Clairton, Pa., on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025. (Quinn Glabicki\/Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source via AP)<\/p>\n