AK Steel's Experts Find Dicks Creek Poses No Health or Environmental Risk

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-- WITH PHOTO -- TO BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:

AK Steel's Experts Find Dicks Creek Poses No Health or Environmental Risk

OHIO, MIDDLETOWN, Jun. 19 -/E-Wire/-- A globally recognized environmental assessment firm has concluded there is no risk to humans or to the environment from the low levels of chemicals found in the Dicks Creek area in Middletown, Ohio, and that significant sources of these chemicals are upstream of AK Steel's Middletown Works.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19990901/AKSLOGO )

The small creek is part of the focus of an environmental lawsuit filed June 29, 2000 against AK Steel (NYSE: AKS) by the U.S. government on behalf of U.S. EPA. In a related unilateral order issued to AK Steel on August 17, 2000, the U.S. EPA claimed that chemicals in the Dicks Creek area posed an "imminent and substantial endangerment" to human health and the environment, ordering AK Steel to immediately address the situation.

At the time the unilateral order was issued to AK Steel, Karen Thompson, a spokesperson for U.S. EPA was quoted in the Dayton Daily News as saying, "We felt this was serious enough that it required immediate action."

To the contrary, however, a comprehensive risk assessment, utilizing the EPA's own extremely conservative assumptions and methodologies, concluded that the risks posed by the low levels of chemicals in the area of the creek to be from 10 to more than 100 times below the level considered significant by the U.S. EPA itself.

The study was submitted by AK Steel with a request for an injunction under the All Writs Act in federal district court in Cincinnati. The study, commissioned by AK Steel, is the culmination of nearly five years of exhaustive soil, water, sediment, ecological, biological and toxicity evaluations by ARCADIS G&M;, a worldwide environmental engineering company with U.S. headquarters in Denver and operations in more than 100 countries.

The study includes four risk assessments that thoroughly evaluated the potential risks presented by the low levels of PCBs and other chemicals found in the Dicks Creek study area on anglers, waders, swimmers, workers, hypothetical trespassers, benthic invertebrates (such as worms and insect larvae) fish, birds and mammals. The study evaluated all potential risks associated with all chemicals of concern, without respect to whether they originated from any past practice associated with AK Steel.

According to ARCADIS, the use of U.S. EPA's conservative methodologies and assumptions assured that any potential risks associated with any chemicals of concern in the Dicks Creek study area resulted in a substantial overestimation of any actual risks and hazards. Further, because significant sources of chemicals were found upstream from AK Steel, any potential risk from AK Steel itself is substantially overstated using the U.S. EPA methodologies and assumptions.

For example, utilizing U.S. EPA guidance, ARCADIS assumed that people living near Dicks Creek would each drink surface water directly out of Dicks Creek, eat mud from the very bottom of the creek and eat fish from the creek over a 30-year period.

Nonetheless, even with unrealistic assumptions, the exhaustive study found that the low levels of PCBs and other chemicals presented no discernable risk to humans or the environment by a wide margin.

In addition, the study revealed four other significant conclusions. First, the principal impact on habitat in the Dicks Creek study area is not from low levels of any chemicals, rather it is the result of channelization of large portions of the creek by the Miami Conservancy District in the late 1960's when all adjacent bank-side vegetation was destroyed.

Second, the study found significant concentrations of chemicals in sediments upstream of AK Steel, meaning that the low levels of chemicals detected in Dicks Creek are derived from multiple sources. Third, no PCBs have been detected in the waters of Dicks Creek since early in 1998, according to the study.

Finally, the study confirmed that detectable levels of PCBs remain in sediments in the Great Miami River upstream of AK Steel's water intake pipe. The Ohio EPA discovered these PCBs upstream of AK Steel's inlet in 1995, however the agency has not publicized the issue nor attempted to prosecute any potentially responsible parties for that contamination to the knowledge of AK Steel. AK Steel draws cooling water from the Great Miami that contains these upstream PCBs, utilizes the water and discharges it through its permitted outfalls into Dicks Creek.

Dicks Creek is a small stream in an urbanized, industrial area to the south and east of Middletown. It is a significant carrier of City of Middletown storm water runoff, agricultural runoff and industrial wastewaters from sources other than AK Steel.

AK Steel submitted the study, which contains several hundred pages of data, to the court on June 6, 2001 with its request for an injunction.

"Having selected its own avenue of relief through federal district court, the U.S. EPA must not be allowed to subsequently trump its own hand with a unilateral administrative order that would effectively circumvent the jurisdiction of the federal court," said Alan H. McCoy, vice president, public affairs for AK Steel. "More importantly, the court should be given the opportunity to assess the considerable evidence presented by AK Steel that any chemicals of concern in the Dicks Creek study area pose no risk to humans, plants or animals, which casts serious doubts on all of EPA's allegations."

With headquarters in Middletown, Ohio, AK Steel produces flat-rolled carbon, stainless and electrical steel products for automotive, appliance, construction and manufacturing markets, as well as standard pipe and tubular steel products. The company has about 11,200 employees in steel plants and offices in Middletown, Coshocton, Mansfield, Warren and Zanesville, Ohio; Ashland, Ky.; Rockport, Ind.; and Butler, Sharon and Wheatland, Pa.

/Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19990901/AKSLOGO AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org PRN Photo Desk, [REDACTED-PHONE] or [REDACTED-PHONE]/

AK Steel Corporation

http://www.aksteel.com/

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