One week after a devastating explosion at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works near Pittsburgh, the community of Clairton and surrounding towns is still reeling, coming together in grief and solidarity as questions about the plant’s future swirl. On Monday night, August 18, 2025, people of different faiths gathered at St. Clare of Assisi Church of Triumph of the Holy Cross Parish to pray for healing and honor the two workers who lost their lives, as well as those injured in the blast.
“We’re blessed to be able to be together as a community, to bring us together and really see how seriously sad the event has been. It’s affected so many people,” said M.J. Cloherty, a resident of Jefferson Hills, according to local reporting. The tragedy, which killed two workers and hospitalized 10, has deeply shaken the region, long synonymous with steelmaking and the blue-collar grit that built it.
“I’m glad to see the city of prayer coming together to pray for one another in the wake of this tragedy. It is a terrible thing and to lose folks in the accident, to know so many are suffering,” said Michael Airgood, pastor of Pine Run United Methodist Church. Father Paul Zywan, pastor of Triumph of the Holy Cross Parish, echoed these sentiments, noting that he has heard “countless stories from those who have been hit the hardest by the disaster. Workers with fellow workers or family members who knew those involved, and just the level of raw emotions, the spectrum of feelings towards the tragedy.”
The explosion, which occurred at one of the plant’s six batteries of ovens, was so powerful that it took hours for rescue teams to locate the two missing workers beneath the wreckage. Two batteries were damaged in the blast, and two others are now operating on a reduced schedule, leaving the facility’s future output uncertain. U.S. Steel officials have not provided a timeline for returning the damaged batteries to service, and the cause of the explosion remains under investigation.
For the Mon Valley, a river valley south of Pittsburgh, the Clairton Coke Works is more than just an industrial facility—it’s a symbol of the area’s enduring connection to steel. The plant is the largest coking operation in North America and, together with a blast furnace and finishing mill up the Monongahela River, stands as one of the few remaining integrated steelmaking operations in the United States. But the explosion has revived long-standing debates about the plant’s viability, safety, and role in the community, just as U.S. Steel was emerging from a period of uncertainty following its acquisition by Japanese steel giant Nippon Steel.
U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt, speaking at a news conference the day after the explosion, sought to reassure local residents and workers about the plant’s future. “We’re investing money here. And we wouldn’t have done the deal with Nippon Steel if we weren’t absolutely sure that we were going to have an enduring future here in the Mon Valley,” Burritt said. “You can count on this facility to be around for a long, long time.” Burritt also emphasized that he had spoken with top Nippon Steel officials after the explosion and that “this facility and the Mon Valley are here to stay.”
Nippon Steel, which recently completed a $15 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel, has promised a significant infusion of cash and pledged to invest $11 billion into upgrading U.S. Steel’s aging plants, with $2.2 billion earmarked for the Mon Valley facilities. However, it remains unclear whether the recent tragedy will alter those plans. In response to questions, a Nippon Steel spokesperson stated, “Our commitment to the Mon Valley remains strong,” adding that the company had sent technical experts to work with local teams at the Clairton plant and to provide full support.
Despite these assurances, the explosion has put a spotlight on the plant’s troubled safety record and the broader challenges facing the American steel industry. Accidents at the Clairton Coke Works are, unfortunately, nothing new. Earlier this year, in February, another explosion at the plant injured two workers. In June, while Nippon Steel was finalizing its acquisition, a breakdown at the facility led to three days of foul odors in the area due to elevated hydrogen sulfide emissions, according to the environmental group GASP. The Breathe Project, a public health organization, reports that U.S. Steel has paid $57 million in fines and settlements since January 1, 2020, for problems at the Clairton plant.
The plant’s history of environmental violations is well-documented. A 2018 Christmas Eve fire saturated the area’s air with sulfur dioxide for weeks, leading to a lawsuit and a damning assessment of the plant’s maintenance practices. An engineer for the environmental groups that sued wrote that he “found no indication that U.S. Steel has an effective, comprehensive maintenance program for the Clairton plant,” describing the facility as “inherently dangerous because of the combination of its deficient maintenance and its defective design.” U.S. Steel settled the suit, agreeing to spend millions on upgrades.
Matthew Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project, has criticized U.S. Steel’s spending priorities, saying the company “has shown more willingness to spend money on fines, lobbying the government and buying back shares to reward shareholders than making its plants safe.” U.S. Steel officials, for their part, maintain that safety is their top priority and note that they spend $100 million annually on environmental compliance at Clairton alone.
The future of the plant, and the jobs it supports, is anything but certain. For years before the Nippon Steel acquisition, U.S. Steel had signaled that the Mon Valley’s days as a steelmaking hub might be numbered, leading to persistent anxiety among workers about job security. The broader context is sobering: In the early 1970s, the U.S. boasted 62 coke plants and 141 blast furnaces, but decades of foreign competition and a shift toward electric arc furnaces have left only a handful of such facilities operating today. China, by contrast, now dominates global steel production and continues to invest heavily in coal-based steelmaking.
Christopher Briem, an economist at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Social and Urban Research, questioned whether the Clairton plant truly has a secure future, given its age and the shifting economics of steel. “I’m not quite sure it’s all set in stone as people believe,” Briem said. “If the market does not bode well for U.S. Steel, for American steel, is Nippon Steel really going to keep these things?”
Even as the community mourns, there is a sense of resilience and determination to move forward together. “Holding each other up and coming together to comfort one another,” said Pastor Airgood. “Anyone who’s lived in Clairton understands that this is a community that comes together.” As the investigation continues and decisions about the plant’s future loom, the people of Clairton are drawing on deep wells of solidarity and hope—reminders that, in the face of tragedy, unity is often the community’s greatest strength.
