Steel Products

Flooding Shuts Down All Furnaces at U.S. Steel Gary Works

November 29, 2019

A water pipe break at U.S. Steel Gary Works has resulted in the shutdown of all furnaces at the facility due to safety concerns.

Said U.S. Steel spokeswoman Amanda Malkowski, “On November 27, U.S. Steel reported a service water leak that caused flooding at our Gary Works facility near our blast furnace operations. As a precaution, we proactively stopped the blast furnaces and steel production to protect our people, assets and the environment until the issue was resolved. The water disruption has been resolved and the team is in the process of restarting auxiliary assets within Gary. We expect the first blast furnace to be brought back on line over the weekend. Gary Works is expected to be back to its pre-flood blast furnace footprint by mid-week. Customers should not be adversely impacted by these steps.

“At the time of the water leak, we observed discoloration at the outfall. IDEM and other appropriate agencies and downstream users were notified,” added Malkowski. “Additional sampling is ongoing to ensure environmental performance, though we have not noted any exceedances in our testing to date. The safety of our people, assets, the environment and the surrounding community remain our top priority as we resume iron and steel production at Gary.”

Located on the south shore of Lake Michigan, Gary Works has both steelmaking and finishing facilities. The mill has an annual raw steel making capacity of 7.5 million tons per year and produces hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized sheet products.