Citizens return pollution to CEO, board of AK Steel at shareholders meeting in Delaware

For immediate release
May 14, 2002

Contact:
Rachael Belz, Ohio Citizen Action (513) 545-6046
Ray Agee, United Neighbors Against Dirty Air (UNADA) (513) 420-9976

MIDDLETOWN OH -- Neighbors of AK Steel in Middletown, Ohio, and environmental advocates traveled to Wilmington, Delaware from Middletown, Ohio today to deliver 150 pounds of particulate pollution to Richard Wardrop, AK Steel CEO at the AK Steel Annual Shareholders meeting.

Complaints about air pollution associated with AK Steel have been recorded as far back as 1976, when a new $95 million coke-making complex was installed onsite between the Oneida and Mayfield neighborhoods in Middletown, Ohio. Complaints include large amounts of metal flakes, white and black particles and soot falling on neighbors daily. When tested in February, particulate samples were shown to contain lead, manganese, arsenic, mercury, zinc, strontium and other chemicals.

'It gets on everything,' Ray Agee, AK Steel neighbor and former worker, said. 'You can't sit outside and drink a cup of coffee without metal flakes landing in your cup,' Agee said. Since 1996, Agee, 61, has personally made 60 complaints about the air pollution issues from AK Steel to the local air agency in Cincinnati.

The Good Neighbor Campaign member groups include Sierra Club, Ohio Citizen Action, Cincinnati based ECO: Environmental Community Organization; and UNADA (United Neighbors Against Dirty Air) in Middletown, Ohio.