Economic Importance and Continuing Viability
During its operation Geneva Steel was important to the Utah County economy, providing thousands of jobs and attracting many ancillary businesses to the area. As time went on, however, the distance from the plant to any major steel market, increasing labor costs, foreign imports, and the general decline of manufacturing industries in the USA contributed to the decay of the business.
Early in 1987 the mill shut down temporarily but reopened later after the mill was spun off from US Steel and purchased by local business interests. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Students from Brigham Young University protested the pollution, particularly the particulate matters, emitted from the steel operation. They carried signs at the entrance of BYU football games that included slogans like, "Pollution makes God barf." These protestors were threatened by steel workers and were marginalized as the Utah Valley community sided with Geneva Steel.
The Cannon Brothers bought the plant with the help of Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. They kept it open for the longest time possible. In March 1999 the company filed bankruptcy and reorganized with a $110 million loan via the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Act, but the reorganization attempt failed. Geneva Steel filed bankruptcy again and shut down permanently in November 2002.
There is some controversy regarding their alleged pollution of Utah Lake. Contaminated groundwater under a former Utah steel mill may be moving toward Utah Lake according to a recent report conducted by a Salt Lake City engineering company. The Utah Department of Environmental Quality is investigating the CH2M Hill study of the Geneva Steel site in Vineyard to determine if contaminated groundwater is moving beyond the facility boundary. The facility site and environmental contaminants are being remediated under EPA's voluntary Brownfields cleanup program.
U.S. Steel operated the site in the early 1940s, producing millions of tons of steel for the war effort. After the war, U.S. Steel ran the company until 1987 when it sold the plant to Geneva Steel Company. During its years of operation, the facility produced wastes contaminated with human carcinogens and hazardous substances including arsenic, lead, zinc, nickel, acids, PCBs and petroleum products. Arsenic, ammonia and benzene recently showed up in a number of groundwater monitoring wells around the perimeter of the plant. The Utah Department of Environmental Quality is still unsure, however, if toxic chemicals are definitely moving toward Utah Lake.
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