Many towns are facing public health consequences of fossil fuels. But Clairton’s pollution crisis has unique political stakes — pitting the behemoth US Steel... against environmentalists and local health officials... As US Steel racks up pollution violations, the most high-profile young politician in the Keystone State, Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, has stood in front of the Clairton plant backed by hard-hatted union workers to voice support for keeping it running — and exceeding pollution limits — while it is repaired... US Steel filed a short accident report [following the Dec 2018 fire], but kept the plant running despite health department pollution monitors recording sulfur dioxide levels topping federal safety standards.

... At the end of February, the county health department, which is charged with enforcing EPA pollution limits, told US Steel to cut its sulfur emissions from all three of its Mon Valley facilities below federal limits... In response, US Steel said it was accelerating completion of all repairs from mid-May to April 15, due to early delivery of specially fabricated parts... [According to] Meade, a clean air activist in Clairton... it was simply incredible that a factory with a long history of pollution was still running day and night months after its pollution controls had burned down. “If this was going on in a place with medium- or high-income people, there’s no way the plant would keep running.”