The 37 Times McDonald Steel Failed the Environment

TLDR

For years, the McDonald Steel Corporation, operating out of McDonald, Ohio, treated the Mahoning River less like a vital natural resource and more like a convenient disposal chute.

According the EPA, between 2017 and 2020, this corporation repeatedly violated the Clean Water Act, discharging excessive amounts of oil and grease into navigable waters!

While the company has agreed to a civil penalty of $120,000 to settle these allegations, the environmental scars and the brazen disregard for regulatory limits paint a stark picture of corporate priorities.

We invite you to read further to understand the systemic mechanisms that allow such corporate pollution to persist and why a six-figure fine is often just the cost of doing business in modern America.

Table of Contents

1. The Machinery of Corporate Greed and Environmental Neglect
2. Allegations of Corporate Pollution: A Timeline of Excess
3. The Illusion of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Rust Belt
4. Public Health and the Price of Neoliberal Capitalism

The Machinery of Corporate Greed and Environmental Neglect

In the grand theater of American neoliberal capitalism, the script rarely changes: an exploitative corporation extracts profit, the environment absorbs the cost, and the public is left wondering why the river smells of industry.

The case of McDonald Steel Corporation is one such example of this economic system that prioritizes output over the sanctity of our shared commons.

The Mahoning River, a tributary vital to the ecological health of Ohio, was subjected to a relentless assault of “oil and grease”… which be a sterile euphemism for pollutants that suffocate aquatic life and degrade water quality. The EPA’s findings reveal that this was a whole ass sustained period of violation where the facility’s Outfall 001 became a point source for industrial filth.

Allegations of Corporate Pollution: A Timeline of Excess

The sheer volume of violations alleged by the EPA suggests a systemic failure within the facility’s operations. The following timeline outlines the periods during which McDonald Steel Corporation is accused of exceeding the pollution limits set by their NPDES permit.

This table represents 37 separate instances where the corporation failed to contain its industrial waste, allowing it to flow unchecked into the Mahoning River.

The Illusion of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Rust Belt

Corporations often drape themselves in the rhetoric of corporate social responsibility, yet their actions on the ground (or in the water) tell a different story.

The facility produces hot rolled special steel shapes, a process that generates significant profit. However, the monitoring reports reviewed by the EPA indicate that the company failed to keep its oil and grease discharge within the generous limits afforded to it by the state.

When an evil corporation exceeds a daily loading limit of 11.67 kg/day twenty-seven times in less than two years, one must ask whether corporate accountability is a governing principle or merely a suggestion to be weighed against the cost of compliance.

Public Health and the Price of Neoliberal Capitalism

The degradation of the Mahoning River is a direct consequence of wealth disparity and the industrial prioritization of the few over the many. Oil and grease are classified as “pollutants” under the Clean Water Act for good reason! They disrupt ecosystems, harm wildlife, and degrade the quality of public health resources.

In a society driven by corporate greed, the environment is often treated as an external dumping ground. The discharge of these pollutants constitutes a “continuing violation” of the Clean Water Act, a bland legalistic way of saying the damage was ongoing and persistent.

The community of McDonald, Ohio, and those downstream are the silent victims of this corporate pollution, bearing the ecological debt incurred by the steel manufacturer.

Please fact check me by visiting the EPA’s website containing the CAFO which was referenced to write this article: https://yosemite.epa.gov/OA/RHC/EPAAdmin.nsf/Filings/5283016CB8E14C9085258ABA00585122/$File/CWA-05-2024-0005_CAFO_McDonaldSteelCorporation_McDonaldOhio_12PGS.pdf