The Cleveland-based company said an unfavorable ruling from the International Trade Commission was behind the move.
Last year, Cleveland Cliffs and the United Steelworkers petitioned the U.S. Department of Commerce to declare unfair trade practices on foreign tin and chromium coated sheet steel products.
Commerce then imposed tariffs on four countries: Canada, China, South Korea and Germany. However, the International Trade Commission rejected the tariffs earlier this month.
Cleveland Cliffs said the plant’s workers would be offered opportunities to transfer or receive severance.
West Virginia’s U.S. senators reacted negatively to the Cleveland Cliffs announcement.
“While little consolation to the hardworking men and women facing this incredible loss – and to the Weirton community at large – I fought to sustain operations there since learning of Cleveland Cliffs’ and the United Steelworkers’ concerns with unfair trade practices last year,” said Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito. “As I have said before, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s final decision announced in January demonstrated our government’s recognition of the damage these unfair trade practices have had on America’s domestic tin mill production and its workers.”
“Today’s announcement is a consequence of the International Trade Commission’s decision to turn a blind eye to nearly 1,000 hard-working employees right here in West Virginia in favor of illegally dumped and subsidized imports,” said Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat. “Cleveland-Cliffs’ closure is an absolute injustice not only to American workers, but to the very principle of fair competition, and it will undoubtedly weaken our economic and national security.”
West Virginia American Water said it is continuing to closely monitor water supplies along the Ohio River following the Norfolk Southern Railway train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio earlier this month.
West Virginia American Water said it is continuing to closely monitor water supplies along the Ohio River following the Norfolk Southern Railway train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio earlier this month.
The accident ignited tens of thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals prompting officials to evacuate nearby residents.
The chemicals, which include vinyl chloride, a known carcinogen, are responsible for killing thousands of fish and harming wildlife like coyotes, foxes and birds as well as domestic pets.
Trace amounts of hazardous chemicals have since been identified in the Ohio River, which makes up much of West Virginia’s western border.
According to Gov. Jim Justice’s office the “low levels” of butyl acrylate reached the Ohio River through its tributary, Little Beaver Creek.
Vinyl chloride has not been detected.
During a press conference Tuesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said the cleanup of the train derailment site is being done as quickly and safely as possible but expressed his surprise at a new development.
“I learned today from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio that this train was not considered a high hazardous material train,” DeWine said. “I’m gonna repeat this. This train apparently was not considered a high hazardous material train. Therefore, the railroad was not required to notify anyone here in Ohio about what was in the rail cars coming to our state.”
DeWine said he had only just heard Tuesday that the Norfolk Southern Railway train was not required to notify state officials about the details regarding the chemicals it was transporting.
“Even though some rail cars did have hazardous material on board, and while most of them did not, that’s why it was not categorized as a high hazardous material train,” DeWine said. “Frankly, uh, if this is true, and I’m told it’s true, this is absurd, and we need to look at this and Congress needs to take a look at how these things are handled. We should know when there are trains carrying hazardous material that are going through the state of Ohio.”
In Weirton, West Virginia, officials have taken the precaution of shutting down their water intake from the Ohio River and moving to wells.
In Huntington, American Water enhanced the treatment process at the city’s intake. The company has completed installation of a secondary intake on the Guyandotte River, in the event of a need to switch to an alternate source of water. The company conducts daily tests on the water several miles upstream from the Huntington intake.
As fear grows that contamination will affect lower tributaries of the Ohio River, an official with Ohio’s Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that an initial plume of contaminants is slowly making its way down the Ohio River.
“The spill did flow to the Ohio River during that initial slug and that the Ohio River is very large and it’s a water body that’s able to dilute the pollutants pretty quickly,” said Tiffany Campbell, chief of Ohio EPA’s Division of Surface Water.
Officials are recommending that people in the immediate vicinity of the derailment drink bottled water as the cleanup and testing of water continues. Campbell said state agencies continue to closely collaborate on the monitoring of water quality.
“The Ohio EPA and other state agencies have been working with the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) to track the contaminant plume in real time,” Campbell said. “It’s moving at about a mile an hour.”
Campbell explained that ORSANCO’s tracking allows for the potential closing of drinking water intakes to allow the majority of the chemicals to pass. She said this strategy, along with drinking water treatment, including oxidation and advanced treatment like activated carbon are effective at addressing the contaminants ensuring the safety of the drinking water supplies.
“So we’re pretty confident that these low levels are not getting passed on to the customers,” Campbell said.
Asked by a reporter what else was in the plume making its way down the Ohio River, Campbell responded largely fire combustion chemicals.
“Honestly, there’s probably it’s the fire contaminant combustion materials. It’s not free product, per se, volatile organic compounds. There could be multiple but not necessarily just the remaining two that we’re seeing in the in the smaller tributaries, if that makes sense.”
She also said currently there are very “low levels” of volatile organic compounds being found in the Ohio River.
“It probably helps that it has been very diluted, and we don’t expect any higher concentrations to follow than the initial onset of the plume that we’re tracking,” she said.
Campbell said they are working with the Ohio Emergency Management Agency to begin testing for PFAS in drinking water.
The West Virginia Emergency Management Division continues to closely monitor the situation with its neighbors in Ohio.
On June 11, 1884, the state’s first Bessemer converter went into operation at the Riverside Iron Works in Wheeling. The Bessemer process made steel even stronger by introducing more air and removing more impurities from iron.
The Bessemer process was just one factor in the rise of West Virginia’s steel industry. A tariff enacted by Congress in 1890 made American tin makers more competitive with the British. It occurred just as the demand for canned foods was growing. The cans were made of thin-rolled steel coated with tin.
The steel industry in the Northern Panhandle got a boost when Ernest Weir moved his sheet and tin plate company from Clarksburg to what is now Weirton in 1909.
Weirton Steel would eventually become the largest employer in West Virginia and the largest tin-plate factory in the nation. The incorporation of Wheeling Steel in 1920 made the Northern Panhandle a steel hub.
Although the state’s steel industry continued to grow through the post-World War II years, foreign competition began taking its toll in the 1960s. Employment levels in the steel industry have now dropped to historic lows.
Every summer Wednesday since 1969, members of the Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church Men’s Club have gathered at the Serbian Picnic Grounds along King’s Creek outside of Weirton, West Virginia. In a long, cement block building, they mill about in the dawn light, eating donuts, drinking coffee, and reading the morning paper. They’re here for a weekly fundraiser they call a “Chicken Blast,” for which they roast 300-400 chickens and sell them to the Weirton community.
“Guys get down here usually around 5:30 in the morning, and they start the process of what we have to do—cleaning the poles up, getting the chickens out, and more or less getting preparations to start the day. I start the fire,” said John Kosanovich, a Men’s Club member.
Kosanovich is nonchalant about the process, but it’s a lot of work. Each member knows their role, and they work together like a well-oiled machine, tending the fires, adding salt and pepper to the chickens, tying 25 to a pole, rotating the poles so each is evenly roasted, checking the chickens for doneness, and then wrapping them in tinfoil to stay hot for customers. When the afternoon rolls around, they take breaks to eat or have a beer from the on-site bar.
The roasting operation is impressive. Four open-air hearths hold three to four poles stacked on top of one another, with about 25 chickens each. A geared machine rotates each pole over the wood fire, burning at about 800 degrees. The chickens on top drip fat on the chickens below, naturally basting them. Other than that, the recipe is deceptively simple.
“They taste terrific!” said Chicken Blast volunteer Jon Greiner. “I think some people say it’s the best chickens that they’ve ever had. A lot of people think there’s a secret recipe—there’s no secret to it at all. It’s just salt and pepper and we make sure they’re cooked.”
A Community of Steel Workers
This complex spit design, an industrial brick oven, and walk-in coolers were built just for this purpose by members of the Men’s Club, who worked at Weirton Steel. They used the specialized skills they developed at work as pipefitters, bricklayers, and machinists to help design and build these hearths.
Their ancestors settled in the Upper Ohio Valley at the turn of the 20th century, establishing the church and picnic grounds.
While the Serbian population has shrunk in recent years with the decline of coal and steel jobs, the community remains an important presence in the Weirton and Steubenville, Ohio communities. In the early days, the customer base was largely steel mill workers and their families.
“Most guys that worked in the mill, they were looking for lunches after work or took a chicken to work for their lunch. And the more the word spread around in the mill about this being available, more people took the opportunity to make themselves available for it,” Kosanovich said.
They chose their roasting day to coincide with the mill workers’ Wednesday payday.
As steel jobs declined in Weirton, the number of chickens the Club sells per week has declined with it. In the early ‘80s, the Club could sell 600-700 chickens a week. Now they average about 350.
“I started in the mill in 1966. And we had 14,000 workers in there. And when I retired in 2003, we had a little over 2,000. So we had a big drop-off,” Kosanovich said.
Still, the men cook about 5,000 chickens over the course of the summer, usually selling out each week in a matter of two and a half hours. Some regular customers have standing weekly orders and come down to the picnic grounds early to stake out their favorite picnic table for their evening chicken dinner.
A Taste of Serbia
The survival of the tradition can be attributed not only to how the weekly Blast fostered community among steel workers but also connects families to their Serbian heritage. Many of the men remember roasting meat in their backyards with their families growing up.
“I lived next to my grandmother and grandfather, and they used to do pigs for Christmas. And we didn’t have electric spits, we had by hand. We were kids. We’d go up there and turn the spit. It would take hours, but we didn’t care. It was cold in January, but we were by that warm fire. You just knew you were helping for the day, and it was a lot of fun,” Kosanovich remembered.
It’s that connection that keeps him coming down at dawn, to stand over a hot fire, every week in the heat of summer.
“Why do I do it?” he asked. “My basic word is tradition. You know, it’s something that you see it done every day, every week, you want to get involved with it.”
The money raised from the Chicken Blasts help the Men’s Club maintain the Picnic Grounds, which are used for graduations, weddings, and other church celebrations, like the Annual Serbian Picnic. The Picnic is like a larger version of the Chicken Blast and serves as a homecoming for those who have moved away from the Weirton area. As usual, the Men’s Club roast hundreds of chickens and a few lambs. The church sells other Serbian fare such as pogacha (a type of Serbian bread), haluski or cabbage and noodles, cevaps (a pork, lamb, and beef sausage), strudel, and nut rolls. Attendees eat, drink beer and Slivovitz, dance to traditional Serbian music, and catch up with family and old friends.
The Chicken Blasts run from the last weekend in May to the last weekend in August at the Serbian Picnic Grounds in Weirton, WV. To order a chicken, call 1-304-748-9866 the Wednesday morning of the Blast. Make sure to start calling at 6:00am the morning of the blast; they’re usually sold out by 8:30am. For more information, visit Serbian Picnic Grounds on Facebook.
Emily Hilliard is the West Virginia State Folklorist with the West Virginia Humanities Council. Learn more about the West Virginia Folklife Program, a project of the West Virginia Humanities Council, at wvfolklife.org.
On August 1, 1918, industrialist Ernest Weir renamed his company Weirton Steel. He’d founded the company with J. A. Phillips in Clarksburg in 1905 as Phillips Sheet & Tin Plate. After Phillips’ death, Weir moved his company from Clarksburg to a southern Hancock County farm that would become the city of Weirton.
As part of the massive National Steel conglomeration, Weirton Steel became our state’s largest employer and taxpayer, and the world’s largest tin-plate producer. The city’s population exploded from virtually nothing to 8,000 in 1920 and 18,000 in 1940. During World War II, the company produced howitzer shells and other munitions and contributed to the atom bomb project. The company continued to grow after the war but suffered from foreign competition in the late 20th century.
In 1984, Weirton steelworkers purchased the plant in an innovative employee-ownership plan, or ESOP. The rest of the ‘80s were profitable, but business fell off dramatically in the ‘90s. In 2003, Weirton Steel, entered into bankruptcy. Since that time, the company has been sold twice and is now owned by ArcelorMittal. Employment at ArcelorMittal Weirton continued to decline. By 2010, the company ranked as the 67th largest private employer with about 1,000 workers.
Still, ArcelorMittal Weirton remained the world’s largest tin plate producer, despite having no hot metal operations. The extant parts of the mill receive coils from ArcelorMittal’s other American operation and clean and coat them.
Parts of the former steel giant, including the open hearth, blooming mill, quality control lab, and research and development structures, have been razed. A site on Weirton Heights was cleared to make way for a new Wal-Mart, a company which now holds the distinction of being West Virginia’s largest private employer.
In Appalachia, we know too well the symptoms of industry in decline. However, some aspects are much more visual than others.
On March 9, I stood anxiously with a crowd of Weirton natives and former steelworkers on a hillside in Weirton, West Virginia, overlooking Weirton Steel’s Basic Oxygen Plant, or BOP. Thousands of people contributed to the steelmaking process in the huge structure since its construction in 1967. Now, they were offering their final goodbyes.
An implosion crew far down below sounded the one-minute warning with an airhorn. All the small talk came to a halt, and for a few moments, the gentle birdsong coming from the trees disguised the fact that everyone was bracing for a huge explosion.
Lights flashed across the rusted structure, followed by a blanketing of noise that enveloped the hillside. The BOP fell forward, unleashing a huge cloud of dust that sped towards the neighborhood below. A giant pile of sheet metal and structural beams was all that remained of what was once called ‘the Mill of the Future’.
Credit Ella Jennings
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A view of Weirton Steel’s Basic Oxygen Plant undergoing deconstruction from Route 2 in Weirton.
My dad, Burt Jennings, was there with me. He had worked in the BOP for a year in 1990, and then all over the mill as a firefighter from 1994 to 2004. He was interviewed by a reporter for WTOV9, and his voice cracked as he spoke.
“It’s really — it’s sad. It is sad,” he said. “So many good guys worked down there. So many families grew out of that mill. It’s sad — really good men and women worked in there. It’s sad for me.”
As the crowd slowly walked away, a man asked me what I was recording the implosion for. After I explained, he commented, “you noticed no one was clapping.”
I was somewhat of an emotional wreck the rest of the day. I even cried a few times. But a year ago, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought. It wasn’t until after I started this project that I found myself caring about the town. Growing up, I hated Weirton. It was a place where people always reminisced about the past, because there wasn’t much to look forward to in the present.
Credit Ella Jennings
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A cloud of dust rises from what was once Weirton Steel’s Basic Oxygen Plant.
After my parents divorced, I moved to Weirton with my mom and lived there from 2005 until I graduated from Weir High School in 2014. It wasn’t an exciting place to be a kid. There are a lot of cafes around town, but not the kind for coffee; they’re gambling joints with video lottery machines. The West Virginia Limited Video Lottery Act in 2001 allowed up to 9,000 video lottery retailers in the state, and paired with the decline of the steel industry in Weirton, these cafes provided many businesses with easy revenue. Even the old Dairy Queen was converted into a video lottery hot spot, which spurred two middle school girls to start a petition to bring back places for kids to go in the city. The most popular place for high schoolers to hang out was the Sheetz parking lot.
When the time came to go to college, I couldn’t have been more happy. I arrived at West Virginia University ready to forget everything before my freshman year of college. And for a long time, I did do just that. I enrolled in journalism classes and found myself happily removed from anything to do with the Ohio Valley.
But, as I matured, I realized there was a story behind why my childhood home faces so many struggles. The term “deindustrialization” became an obsession of mine as I studied the structural issues that led to Weirton’s blighted state.
We are not alone in our struggles; hundreds of small towns and cities across the U.S. and the world have faced the consequences that come along with the steady decline of manufacturing employment. Businesses close, populations decline, the middle class shrinks, and people are left wondering what happened to their once prosperous community. How do people cope when the economy advances and they’re left behind in the rubble? I set out to find an answer to that question.
In this five-part, personal narrative podcast, you’ll follow along with me as I discover more about my city’s steeltown past and the social and economic repercussions that played out in the area as the United States’ steel industry fell. This was a journey of self-discovery for me as I made a connection with my hometown that I never thought would be possible, and I hope you will make a connection with Weirton as well.
