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Last of Valley blast furnaces coming down
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
After a yearlong reprieve, the former Republic Steel/RG Steel blast furnace on Main Avenue Southwest, one of the most iconic structures in Trumbull County, is coming down – again.
Tara Cioffi of the Youngstown City Health Department, environmental health director for the Mahoning County Air Pollution Control Agency, said the owners of the blast furnace resumed demolition Aug. 2.
The work has been slow and steady since then. The work is noticeable up close but not from a distance.
The demolition began in June 2016 and was originally supposed to be finished by November 2016, but the company put the demolition on hold in August 2016.
This is the last blast furnace left in the Mahoning Valley. At one time, the Valley’s steel industry had dozens of them.
Cioffi said the demolition company, MCM Management of Michigan, indicated the demolition would be a deconstruction and not an implosion like blast-furnace demolitions of the past. She said she believes a slow deconstruction is still the company’s plan.
During summer 2016, MCM removed some of the asbestos in the blast furnace, but there is still additional asbestos to remove, Cioffi said.
“Basically they are dismantling areas where the asbestos has already been abated,” she said. There are still 250 lineal feet of asbestos to remove from pipes.
“Basically they are taking down what they can without disturbing asbestos,” she said.
An inspector from the air pollution control agency has been on site inspecting the work, Cioffi said.
MCM has until August 2018 to complete the demolition, but Cioffi said she doesn’t know how long it will actually take.
She added her agency has “not had any issues,” with MCM’s work.
BDM Warren Steel Holdings owns the blast furnace and the rest of the former mill property, having bought it out of bankruptcy in September 2012, after the mill had shut down in May 2012. The closing put about 1,000 steelworkers out of a job.
BDM revealed plans in 2013 to demolish everything on the 1,100-acre RG mill site and started the demolition soon thereafter. The blast furnace has been described as the final part of the demolition. The part of the property on the east side of Main Avenue has already been leveled.
Many other structures near the blast furnace remain, however, because Arcelor Mittal Warren operates a coke plant there and still uses the boiler in the coke-making operation. The boiler fed heated air to the blast furnace when it was operating.
There had been blast furnaces in the Mahoning Valley for 214 years, with the first one – the Hopewell Furnace in Yellow Creek Park in Struthers – being built in 1803. There are still remnants of two – the Hopewell and Mill Creek Furnace in Mill Creek Park.