In the aftermath of the Aug. 11 explosion at a Pittsburgh-area coal-fed coke plant that killed two workers, hospitalized 10, and sent a plume of black smoke into the air, local environmental nonprofit Breathe Project was resolute: “This could have been prevented,” the organization wrote in a statement hours after the catastrophe, “if necessary changes and upgrades were done to the plant when stated.”
It’s still too soon to know what exactly went wrong to cause the accident at Clairton Coke Works. Longtime owner United States Steel Corporation and the federal Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board — though under attack by the Trump administration — have each launched investigations into the incident. The federal probe could take more than a year.
