Rain, rain go away: a ‘green steel’ revolution at Dofasco could end Hamilton’s infamous storms of black soot

The ominously low black cloud rolled down Hamilton's beach strip, making it difficult for Scott Howley to see out of the window of the Dynes Tavern.

It looked like the kind of cloud where it should be pouring - but the sidewalks were dry," he recalled of the infamous black snowstorm" of coal dust in June 2007. Howley and other beach residents braved the dusty artificial twilight to take photos that day - some of which were published in The Spectator.

One picture that stands out for Howley is a roiling soot tsunami with just two recognizable landmarks: a smokestack looming above a wind-whipped pile of coal on the steelmaking harbourfront.

Visible industrial fallout - anything from soybean husks to carbon black to salt - has long plagued Hamilton residents who live in the shadow of the industrial bayfront or typically downwind, like those on the beach strip.

But black snow" made up of coal and coke dust, or even shiny blast furnace kish, is probably the most infamous precipitating pollutant in a city that hosts two large-scale users of coal: steelmakers Stelco and ArcelorMittal Dofasco.

And while industrial pollution control has improved since that monstrous cloud chased Howley inside 15 years ago, Ontario's Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks still recorded 59 dark fallout complaints in the lower city in 2019 and 49 in 2020, according to the most recent data available.

In certain areas of the city, that means you can't leave shirts on the clothesline overnight. You wipe off lawn chairs and park slides before letting your kids play on them. And you use a hose for more than watering plants.

It's sort of an annual ritual of spring - get the garden hose, wash the soot off your house," said the 64-year-old Howley, whose daughter and son-in-law spent the weekend cleaning their Beach Boulevard two-storey. Residents on the beach strip Facebook group routinely swap online strategies for safely cleaning dusty windows and blackened holiday lights.

It's not a new phenomenon - Howley has photos of black fallout on cars and homes dating back to the 1970s. I didn't think I'd live to ever see that sort of thing stop," he said. You need coal for steelmaking, right?"

That was true in Hamilton for the past century or so - but maybe not in the future.

If ArcelorMittal Dofasco's planned conversion to green steelmaking goes ahead as advertised by 2028, the biggest user of coal in Hamilton will simply stop using the dirty carbon fuel altogether.

That means the steelmaker's massive pile of coal sitting on the east harbour shore - the one that sprawls over 19 CFL football fields and looms up to four storeys high - will melt away, forever.

Windblown coal dust is not the only source of steelmaking fallout, of course. For example, a bleeder pop" - the intentional release of a dangerous buildup of gas in a blast furnace - can cause a rain of sooty ash after an incident of just a few minutes in duration.

In recent years, the city's biggest steelmaker has also struggled to contain the most visible and infamous air pollution incidents that can lead to fallout.

For example:

• The 2020 Christmas Day slag pit eruption at the No. 4 blast furnace that shook east end homes, sent a mushroom cloud of pollution skyward and was described by residents as feeling like a series of bombs";

• The bleeder pop" in 2019 that spurred environmental charges and caused a black cloud so big that confused residents mistakenly called the fire department; and

• The 2015 blast furnace burp that rained coke and iron particulate onto homes in the Grenfell Street area, eventually resulting in a $162,500 fine to the steelmaker.

But when Dofasco flips the switch to turn on its new electric arc furnace and direct reduced iron (DRI) facility - the latter fed with natural gas to start, but hopefully clean hydrogen in future - all the old coal-dependent technologies will disappear, said Tom Kuhl, the steelmaker's general manager of primary manufacturing.

That means when Dofasco's coal-fired ovens and furnaces finally go dark, the type of pollution plumes that most often show up on the news should never be repeated.

We're not just putting controls on it, we're getting rid of it," said Kuhl, who has worked to limit fugitive emissions from aging coal-fired equipment for three decades. When the coke plants shut down, that's it. We're done."

That means no more coal piles looming over Dofasco's east bayfront Piers 20 and 21. No pollution-leaking coke ovens. No burping blast furnaces.

Does that mean rains of soot will immediately become a historical footnote? Not necessarily.

The city also hosts manufacturers of industrial ingredients like coal tar and carbon black that have been fingered in the past for dark fallout. But the real wildcard is Dofasco's coal-using neighbour, Stelco.

Hamilton's other historic steelmaker - renamed and rescued from creditor protection in 2017 - actually no longer makes iron or steel on the Hamilton bayfront. (It's only integrated steelmaking plant is now located on Lake Erie.)

But Stelco does still store and use vast amounts of coal required for a battery of 83 coke-making ovens on a vast industrial pier at the end of Sherman Avenue. It sends that coke to be used at the Lake Erie mill.

Stelco did not agree to interview requests for this story or provide any information about the future of its coal-fired steelmaking facilities in either Hamilton or Nanticoke, the home of its Lake Erie mill.

But financial filings and lease documents for Stelco facilities obtained by The Spectator offer a clue as to what the future might look like.

Stelco recently sold its 800-acre former steelmaking property on the bayfront to a developer - with a long-term lease allowing the company, in theory, to continue finishing steel products in Hamilton well into the next century.

But a separate lease for its aging coke plant is for a maximum of seven years - meaning if that term isn't extended, the company would have to demolish the polluting coke ovens by 2029. (The company so far has only said it plans to contine the operation" in Hamilton, but not for how long.)

Industry observers have noted mixed signals from the company when it comes to the future of its coal-fired tech.

For example, Stelco just spent hundreds of millions of dollars repairing and upgrading coal-fired blast furnaces and coke ovens on Lake Erie, suggesting the coke made in Nanticoke and Hamilton is still in demand.

But Ontario Premier Doug Ford also recently told The Spectator his government has been in talks with Stelco about potential green steel" projects and grants - so stay tuned.

Whatever happens next at Stelco, Environment Hamilton's Lynda Lukasik said she expects to see a profound" impact from the end of coal at ArcelorMittal Dofasco alone.

Dofasco has the biggest coal piles, the most coke ovens - about 130 in operation - and the only functioning blast furnaces in the city. (Stelco, by contrast, is tearing down its mothballed blast furnace, which last functioned in 2013.)

We've lived with those challenges for so long, it's hard to imagine them disappearing," Lukasik said. But I am optimistically anticipating that we will see profound improvements."

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