THE MINERAL INDUSTRY OF PENNSYLVANIA 623 
 
spotting devices, the use of steam aspiration during the charging of coal
into coke ovens, the use of a 4-year-old cryogenic system to remove up to
100 tons per day of hydrogen sulfide from coke oven gas, and a special training
program for coke oven personnel. 
 Also signed in late October was the Quench Water Agreement that provided
for more than 99% reduction in phenolics and 95% reduction of ammonia and
other chemicals in waste waters discharged from the Clairton Coke Works.
The agreement will terminate the quenching of coke using contaminated water
by July 1975. Within a 3.year period a plant will be built to biologically
treat and to remove ammonia from waste waters. In the same time period pilot
plants will test methods to reduce the content of phenolics, cyanides, and
thiocyanates in waste waters. The most effective system will be used in the
full-scale treatment plant. The construction and operation of the pilot plants
will be supervised by ACHD and DER personnel. Reportedly, it will cost $25
million to comply with the environmental standards covered by the two agreements
and another $1 million for pilot plant research to determine the feasi. bility
of further pollution controls. 
 DER filed suit November 22 against United States Steel for civil penalties
totaling $518,000 for 94 alleged violations related to the discharge of phenolics,
cyanides, oils, soluble iron compounds, acids, and settable solids from eight
plants into the Monongahela River. The suit was filed with the Environmental
Hearing Board, but its ruling may be challenged in the Commonwealth Supreme
Court. 
 Charges were filed January 12 in the Federal District Court in Pittsburgh
by the U.S. Department of Justice for violations of the 1899 Refuse Act.
United States Sted was charged with spilling oil from its Homestead Works
into the Monongahela River October 28, 1971, and with discharging coal tar
from the Clairton Coke Works into Peters Creek June 29, 1971. 
 During 1972, a two-vessel BOF shop was completed at U.S. Steel's Edgar ThomsonIrvin
Works in Braddock. Two electric-arc furnaces and a new wire mill containing
eight wire-drawing machines were completed at the Fairless Works from which
the first truckload shipment was made in mid-December. The new Fairless mill
will concentrate on tonnage markets for bright- 
basic, hard-drawn mechanical and upholstery spring wire. The new mill replaces
U.S. Steel's mill at Worcester, Mass., that was phased out in 1971. 
 The first heat was tapped January 10 from one of two new 220-ton BOF converters
in the No. 5 shop of U.S. Steel's Homestead Works. The shop had five electrostatic
precipitators to clean exhaust gases from the BOF converters. 
 The Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. during December started to phase out
wire and rod production at its Monessen Works. When completed in mid-1973
the phaseout will eliminate about 200 jobs but will not affect 2,600 other
workers at Monessen. Shipments of wire and rod products averaged 49,000 tons
annually in the past 5 years, or 76% less than the 207,000 tons shipped in
1955. Most of the tonnage decrease was blamed on imports. 
 Platinum.—Matthey Bishop, Inc. closed its old platinum refinery in
Malvern March 31 but continued the production of platinum and other precious
metals in a modern plant in the Malvern Industrial Park, 
 The Ford Motor Co., Detroit, Mich., signed a 3-year $70 million contract
in December with Matthey Bishop for a platinum-based converter system to
clean automobile exhaust gases. The contract was expected to supply 30% of
Ford's requirements for vehicles to be manufactured in the 1975, 1976, and
1977 model years. Matthey Bishop will build a new facility to produce the
honeycomb monolithic type of catalyst. The plant may produce about 2.5 million
units per year when full production is attained in 1974. 
 Rarc.Earth Metals.—The Molybdenum Corp. of America (Molycorp) operated
rareearth and cerium processing facilities in Washington and York. The York
plant also produced lanthanum chloride. The consumption of cerium, the most
abundant rare earth, continued to increase because about one-quarter of the
U.S. flint glass container manufacturing plants used a new cerium decolorizing
process to obtain a water-white transparency and to reduce the passage of
harmful ultraviolet radiation into glass containers. The use of 3 ounces
of cerium compounds per ton of glass produced reportedly reduced glass decolorizing
costs by as much as 50%. 
 Molycorp and Alcoa formed a new company, Rare Earth Metals Co. of America