Will Dofasco’s move to ‘green steel’ mean less cancer-causing pollution for Hamilton?

Air pollution comes in all colours in Nancy and John Clarke's McAnulty neighbourhood, nestled as it is against the industrial bayfront and in the shadow of the city's largest steelmaker.

Sometimes John's black Dodge Ram is speckled rusty orange in the morning. Laundry left outside on the line too long can end up smeared with black. Occasionally, something sparkly" layers the deck.

But it is the pollution they cannot see - known cancer-causing contaminants like benzo(a)pyrene and benzene, for example - that worry them most. You do have to wonder, is it affecting me?" said Nancy, 61, a nonsmoker who recently won a battle with breast cancer. The legal assistant has no family history of the disease.

We've seen years and years of environmental abuse. Forty years ago you didn't think about (air pollution) as much because, you know, it's jobs," said John, 65, who developed chronic inflammatory lung disease not long before he retired from the wholesale food business.

Nowadays, obviously, we think about it more."

Despite those worries, the couple has no desire - or in this housing market, financial ability - to move away from their forever home."

So they're watching with wary hope as their giant industrial neighbour, ArcelorMittal Dofasco, embarks on a green steel" transition that promises to dramatically slash emissions of such air pollutants - although not until 2028.

The Clarke's are painfully aware their neighbourhood - bordered by McAnulty Boulevard, Kenilworth Avenue and a sprawling steelmaking complex - shows up in all the wrong health studies.

In 2012, snapshot data from a mobile air quality monitoring van suggested McAnulty Boulevard was among several Hamilton neighbourhoods with increased mortality risk" due to air pollution.

In 2019, a McGill University study listed the couple's postal code as one of four in Hamilton with notably higher rates of acute myeloid leukemia. Researchers pointed to industrial benzene exposure as a potential link.

That chemical is emitted from coal-fired steelmaking plants like Dofasco and Stelco. So is benzo(a)pyrene, a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) created by incomplete combustion - including from the baking of coal into pure-carbon fuel for ironmaking.

Hamilton is the worst hot spot in Ontario for the cancer-causing pollutants, according to provincial modelling that maps risk levels for the airborne carcinogens across the city. (We've reproduced the map for this story, but you can also search the risk associated with your address online.)

It's nasty stuff - definitely not something you want to be breathing," said professor Matthew Adams, an urban air quality researcher at the University of Toronto who is overseeing a pollution monitoring project that will measure benzene levels in neighbourhoods across Hamilton.

There is overwhelming evidence" that the two chemical contaminants cause cancer, he said. So we have a very intense interest in reducing human exposure to these pollutants."

Worth noting: neither pollutant is exclusive to steelmaking.

You can inhale benzene from cigarette smoke and car exhaust, said Adams, who added levels of the chemical are often bad along highways or other busy traffic arteries. Smouldering wood - or even your barbecue-charred steak - can also create benzo(a)pyrene.

But heavy industry is the big reason why modelling shows higher exposure to the cancer-causing chemicals in both Hamilton and Sarnia. In both cities, new or expanding industries now face extra pollution control requirements related to benzene and benzo(a)pyrene emissions.

So when Dofasco - Canada's largest manufacturer of flat-rolled steel - ends the use of coal, it should show a marked difference in air quality for residents, particularly in the core and downwind along the beach," Adams said.

How big a difference?

Dofasco, like all major industrial players in Canada, must report annual emissions of certain contaminants to the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI).

The steelmaker reported the highest benzene air emissions in Ontario in 2020 at about 23 tonnes - or half of all such emissions reported by Hamilton businesses in that year. Neighbouring coal user Stelco reported 17 tonnes - meaning together, Hamilton's steelmakers account for nearly a quarter of all of Ontario's benzene air pollution.

Hamilton's steel producers cast an even bigger shadow when it comes to benzo(a)pyrene pollution.

Dofasco's 58 kilograms alone represent nearly half of all such air pollution in the province in 2020, with Stelco's Hamilton and Nanticoke facilities combined accounting for another quarter. Other Hamilton plants are required to report benzo(a)pyrene pollution, too - but the next highest emitter on the list is Birla Carbon, at less than one kilogram.

Put another way, Hamilton's two coal-fired steelmakers account for the vast majority of the cancer-causing pollutants reported in the city.

Burning coal is a big part of the reason provincial models suggest cancer risk is worse in Hamilton - particularly on the bayfront - based on exposure to those airborne pollutants.

In much of the rural city and south Mountain, for example, the estimated lifetime incremental cancer risk" based on exposure is considered around one in 1 million. The risk increases to one in 100,000 for most of the lower city, east Mountain and along car-clogged roads like the Linc, Red Hill Valley Parkway and the QEW.

But the worst spot in Ontario - with a modelled risk of one in 10,000 - is represented on the provincial map as an alarming yellow blob covering the industrial bayfront, including the east end of Burlington Street, the edges of the Clarke's McAnulty neighbourhood and a long stretch of Beach Boulevard.

ArcelorMittal Dofasco has worked hard to cut those cancer-causing emissions for years, said Tom Kuhl, Dofasco's general manager of primary manufacturing.

Indeed, NPRI-reported data shows Dofasco has slashed annual air emissions of benzene by more than half and benzo(a)pyrene by two-thirds over a decade - but levels typically remain higher than Ontario's general air standard targets.

Once the steelmaker mothballs its coke ovens, shutters it blast furnaces and - ideally - powers up new hydrogen-fed technology, those emissions should all but disappear.

In fact, kicking the coal habit will reduce or in some cases eliminate a whole host of air pollutants now created by traditional steelmaking, said Kuhl, in an interview after the federal government announced green steel cash in 2021.

Anything associated with the coke plants will be gone ... Air issues from the blast furnaces, sulphur from de-slagging process, that all goes."

Yes, that means slashed emissions of infamous benzo(a)pyrene - but also all of its many hydrocarbon cousins. It means less volatile organic compounds like toluene and a reduction in lung-busting compounds like sulphur dioxide, a pollutant that exacerbates conditions like asthma and can make healthy joggers wheeze and hide inside.

Right now, Dofasco spews nearly twice the amount of sulphur dioxide, about 4,600 tonnes a year, of any other local plant reporting to the NPRI. (That data shows Stelco's Hamilton site at around 2,400 tonnes.)

Public details are still scant around exactly what emissions will come from the steelmaker's new electric arc furnace and direct reduced iron facility - which will run on natural gas at first, but later may switch to clean hydrogen.

But Kuhl said the new electric arc furnace will have state of the art" fume-capture systems that should result in next to zero" emissions.

So far, Stelco won't say whether or when it will follow suit and abandon coal use in Hamilton - but lease documents obtained by The Spectator suggest the company's 83 coke ovens in Hamilton could be slated for demolition by 2029.

Ontario's Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford also recently told The Spectator his government has talked about possible green steel" grant opportunities with Stelco.

Regardless, Stelco no longer has a functional blast furnace in Hamilton - the company now only makes iron and steel in Nanticoke - and its coke-making footprint is smaller than that of Dofasco, which by comparison still has two coke plants with about 130 operating ovens.

The idea of all coal-fired pollution disappearing from the bayfront sounds good in theory to John Clarke, who would love to avoid hiding inside on hazy summer days, asthma puffer at the ready.

But he - like many residents The Spectator talked to for this story - noted it is hard to get excited about a pollution revolution that seemingly won't start for six years. That's a lot of time left for bad air days," Clarke said wryly.

Dofasco environmental general manager John Lundrigan told residents at a meeting in May that the company wants to move faster on the green steel transformation if at all possible. It's a priority," he said.

It should be, given the $900-million plowed into the transition by taxpayers, Clarke suggested. I think they should find a way to speed it up. We've all waited a long time already."

Matthew Van Dongen is a transportation and environment reporter at for The Spectator. mvandongen@thespec.com