Growing up in Gary, Dr. Beverly Lewis knew her family’s health issues were severe — but she didn’t know why. It wasn’t until years later, as a medical professional, that she connected the environmental hazards in her hometown to her family’s suffering.
Her brother died of asthma. Her father, a former steelworker in East Chicago, frequently coughed up black phlegm and had to wash their clothes in a special soap to get the coke-stained smudges out of the fabric.
“There are associated health risks of living in highly polluted environments that you are not even aware of because this is your home,” Lewis said. “And if you’re thinking about it, they don’t outweigh the reasons that you’re deciding to come and be with a loved one … so those family roots are very strong, but at the same time, those health risks are also very, very real.”
Now, a new report by Industrious Labs confirms what Lewis and many residents of Northwest Indiana have long suspected: The region’s steel and coke plants, particularly U.S. Steel’s Gary Works, are directly tied to health issues.
The report extends beyond Indiana, covering plants in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and links their emissions to elevated rates of asthma, cancer, and respiratory diseases. Using self-reported data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its CO–Benefits Risk Assessment (COBRA) model, it provides a detailed facility-by-facility analysis, laying bare the environmental and public health costs of these emissions.
The report shows residents housed near Indiana’s three integrated steel mills and two coke plants, all clustered in Northwest Indiana, are especially burdened by emissions from the mills. The report found that Gary Works released 182 tons of 24 hazardous air pollutants into the air in 2022 — the most emissions of any steelmaker in Indiana.
As a child, Lewis was used to seeing the smokey haze over the city, the fire from the blast furnaces on the expressway, and toxic dust settled on parked cars. While locals often pointed a finger at the polluted air, the report provides data to back up their fears.
The coke and steel plants in Northwest Indiana, including Burns Harbor, Gary Works, and Indiana Harbor, are the state’s leading emitters of five dangerous pollutants: nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, lead compounds, and particulate matter, per the report. These pollutants lead to health risks including higher rates of asthma, other respiratory conditions, heart problems, lower life expectancy, and increased hospital visits. It also found that the three integrated steel mills and two coke plants in the region release 19% of all airborne emissions of mercury in the state.
The report estimates that pollution from the Gary Works plant, the largest integrated steel mill in North America, contributes to 57 to 114 premature deaths, 48 emergency room visits, over 11,000 school and work loss days, and almost 32,000 asthma attacks each year. The report links these health impacts, which total $75 million in annual economic loss, directly to emissions from Northwest Indiana’s steel and coke plants.
Additionally, low-income communities of color — like those in Gary — living near steel mills like Gary Works, Burns Harbor, and Indiana Harbor, face cancer rates 12% higher due to air toxic exposure. Residents living near coke manufacturing plants have cancer rates 26% above the national average, according to the report.
Finally, national emissions data also shows that most residents living in Gary are in the top 10% in the nation for risk of developing asthma, due to the release of toxic pollutants like benzene and lead from manufacturing plants. Those pollutants are linked to long-term health issues, including cancer, respiratory diseases, and heart problems.
“The steel industry’s impacts aren’t just statistics in Northwest Indiana; they are personal. It’s children missing school because of their asthma, families overwhelmed by hospital bills, and neighbors we’ve lost far too soon to cancer,” said Dorreen Carey, president of Gary Advocates for Responsible Development (GARD). “Our community deserves clean air and a future in which Gary Works and the region’s other steel mills replace their polluting facilities with cleaner, greener steelmaking technology.”
There are seven coal-based steel plants (also referred to as “mills”) left operating in the U.S., clustered largely across the Midwest: Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In addition, there are 10 coke plants in six states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Together, the 17 mills are responsible for between $6.9 billion and $13.2 billion in annual health impacts, including asthma symptoms, emergency room visits, and premature deaths, the report says, as well as an estimated $137 million in economic losses every year through lost work days, despite the relatively few number of facilities in the U.S.
“Northwest Indiana residents have been sounding the alarm on harmful pollution from steel plants for years, and this report quantifies just how devastating and far-reaching the consequences are,” said Hilary Lewis, steel director at Industrious Labs. “The Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) and the EPA have consistently failed to safeguard the health of Hoosiers from the dangers of coal-based steelmaking. It’s time for stronger regulations that prioritize clean steel technologies and tougher enforcement of penalties on polluters to truly protect public health in communities near steel and coke plants.”
Recently, the stakes have heightened as Northwest Indiana, home to 50% of the nation’s coal-based steel-making process, drew prospective investment. Nippon Steel is seeking to acquire U.S. Steel and has earmarked $300 million for Gary Works. The company has announced its intent to extend the life of the Indiana plant — the country’s largest and most carbon-emitting coal-fired blast furnace — if the $15 billion acquisition goes through with U.S. regulators.
Conversely, local environmental organization GARD has called for shifting away from coal-based blast furnaces to make steel, and instead using production methods that aren’t based on fossil fuels. As an alternative to coal-based blast furnaces, the organization said it supports an alternate ironmaking technology known as direct reduction, which removes the oxygen in the process without melting it through a blast furnace.
“The country’s remaining blast furnaces will all be shut down over the next 15 or so years because they are responsible for so much of the steel industry’s greenhouse gas and toxic air pollution,” said Jack Weinberg, GARD’s Green Steel Committee chairperson. “If Gary Works does not replace its four blast furnaces with new DR technology, the mill will close soon after its last blast furnace shuts down.”