Waste Water Control at
Midwest Steel's New Finishing Mill
C. D. HARTMAN, Superintendent of Utilities
Midwest Steel Division
National Steel Corporation
Portage, Indiana
F. E. TUCKER, Supervisor Industrial Health Engineering
Research and Development
National Steel Corporation
Weirton, West Virginia
P. D. SIMMONS, Industrial Health Engineer, Research and Development
National Steel Corporation
Weirton, West Virginia
and
A. S. TOTH, Principal Engineer
Hydrotechnic Corporation
New York,  New York
INTRODUCTION
Expansion in steel making and finishing capacity elsewhere in the world
has been outstripping corresponding growth in the United States. While we
are still able to maintain leadership in this major industry, the increasing
number of new installations and the availability of low cost labor in other
lands are threatening this position. Still other pressures are being exerted by
domestic metal, glass, and plastic industries.
To fight back, steel is building new modern facilities and retiring old
inefficient facilities. By speeding up production, automating certain operations, improving product quality, and producing new marketable items, new
plant construction is required. In nearly every such case, local authorities
are requiring the installation of adequate wastes control facilities to satisfy
the increasing need for the protection of the water resources in the area.
Steel plants, such as the plant of Midwest Steel, a division of National Steel,
on the shore of Lake Michigan, are accepting the financial and moral obli-
tation of waste water control while most foreign competitors do very little in
leir installations toward cleaning up industrial wastes discharges.
DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATION OF FINISHING MILL
The site of the new mill at the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan is
adjacent to Burns Ditch, an artificial drainage channel, installed by court
order in 1927. Figure 1 is a photograph of the unimproved site, an area
within the belt of the Indiana sand dunes, which is now the object of special
interest groups to conserve its natural beauty.
National Steel Corporation first acquired the land in 1929 and 30 years
later it was used for the construction of the midwest finishing mill. Figure 2
shows the completed mill which produced galvanized steel as early as December 1960.
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