CMU Tech Helps Experts Examine Steel's Impact on Environment, Economic Opportunity
A new report from Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab examines how steelmaking influences economic opportunity and environmental conditions in southwestern Pennsylvania.
The report combines employment and demographic data with advanced air pollution modeling to analyze how employment at steelmaking facilities aligns with long-term economic conditions in the Mon Valley, a group of municipalities along the Monongahela River in the Pittsburgh region. It highlights where steel jobs are located, who holds them and how those patterns overlap with environmental exposure and regional economic change.
“This work reflects the CREATE Lab’s emphasis on applying research expertise to issues with direct local impact,” said Mickey McGlasson, a community data scientist in the CREATE Lab in CMU’s School of Computer Science. “We focused on creating straightforward data visualizations to make this information more accessible.”
The study focuses on a set of large industrial facilities that form one of the last fully integrated steel production systems operating in the U.S. The researchers used publicly available labor, wage and commuting data, along with atmospheric dispersion modeling techniques developed and refined at the CREATE Lab to analyze employment stability, workforce characteristics and pollution exposure across the Mon Valley.
Steel production employment has declined throughout the U.S., with much of the shift reflecting changes in production technology, particularly the widespread adoption of electric arc furnace steelmaking. This process relies on recycled scrap metal, requires fewer workers and generally produces fewer emissions than traditional basic oxygen furnace production.
The notable exception to this adoption is the Pittsburgh region, where production relies on older, more labor-intensive methods, including basic oxygen furnaces supplied by one of the last remaining coking facilities in the country. As a result, Allegheny County continues to rank among the top counties nationwide for steelworker employment, despite the industry’s overall reduction.
Employment levels in the Mon Valley have remained relatively stable for roughly two decades, and steelworkers at these facilities earn significantly higher wages than the county average. In 2000, the average earnings of iron and steelworkers were about 25% higher than the average Allegheny County salary. By 2022, they made 91% more.
The Mon Valley is a group of municipalities along the Monongahela River in the Pittsburgh region.
But the CREATE Lab report finds that most steelworkers do not live in the communities closest to the mills. Instead, most workers commute long distances, often crossing county lines to reach their jobs. Only about 4% of workers employed at Mon Valley steelmaking sites live in the municipalities that host or border the facilities. As a result, much of the direct economic benefit accrues outside the communities where the steelmaking facilities are located.
Mon Valley municipalities have also faced sustained population loss and economic decline for decades. The six municipalities that host or border the studied steelmaking facilities lost roughly one in five remaining jobs over the past decade, a rate that exceeds population decline and outpaces most other areas of Allegheny County.
According to the study, which also analyzed air pollution exposure, these same Mon Valley communities are the ones that feel the largest environmental impact from the facilities. Using weather and atmospheric dispersion modeling — a mathematical simulation that shows how air pollutants disperse in the atmosphere — the CREATE Lab identified a primary pollution zone that receives the highest cumulative emissions from the steelmaking facilities. That zone houses more than 80,000 residents, but only about 330 steelworkers live within it. The facilities consistently rank among the largest industrial sources of air pollution in the region.
The researchers emphasize that the analysis does not attempt to establish causation between pollution from steel production and regional economic outcomes. Instead, it reflects the CREATE Lab’s broader mission to integrate technical expertise with community-oriented questions. The project, supported by the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies, demonstrates how CMU researchers can gather and translate complex data to inform public understanding of how industrial systems continue to shape economic and environmental conditions in the Pittsburgh region.
Read the report to view the CREATE Lab’s data visualizations and learn more.
For More Information: Aaron Aupperlee | 412-268-9068 | aaupperlee@cmu.edu