Vacant buildings to be used for steel

Dismantled buildings are being used in the making of new steel.
WEIRTON, W.Va. (AP) -- International Steel Group soon will begin dismantling vast, vacant buildings in Weirton, some so dilapidated that grass and knee-high weeds have sprouted from rooftops and gutters.
The demolition is expected to begin next week, company and union officials said. Any usable scrap from the rusting structures will be melted down and blended to make new steel.
ISG, based in Richfield, Ohio, also will begin overhauling the mill's continuous slab caster next week, plant manager Bill McKenzie said. The work will begin during a three- to four-day outage but won't be completed until later this fall or early in the first quarter of 2005.
The caster repairs had been planned for early next year in a single 10-day outage, "so obviously we won't be able to do it all at once," McKenzie said. About a half-dozen pieces of equipment will be replaced as part of that project.
Big buy
ISG bought bankrupt Weirton Steel Corp. for $253 million in May. Earlier this month, it announced the recall of 50 laid-off workers to restart the second blast furnace and ramp up production to capitalize on record-high steel prices.
As many as 50 more workers have since been recalled, said Mark Roach, vice president of the Independent Steelworkers Union. As of Thursday, the mill employed about 1,950 people. When ISG bought Weirton, it said it would eventually employ about 2,100.
Roach said the transition to a new contract, new work rules and new management style are going well. Management is responsive to workers, he said, "and so far, they've done everything they promised to do."
City officials, meanwhile, are pleased that some of the hulking eyesores in the heart of downtown soon will be removed.
City Manager Gary DuFour said the buildings are probably worth more as scrap steel than they are as structures, so removing them makes sense for both the company and the town.
DuFour also said the city has begun to team up with ISG on a number of local projects, including some road construction work. He expects more partnerships in the future.