Steel Mill

The struggling Sparrows Point steel mill could be sold within the next six months, mill owner RG Steel said Monday. "We're not going to be specific at this time," said Bette Kovach, an RG Steel spokeswoman, as she confirmed comments by two company executives that potential buyers were eyeing the Baltimore County plant, as well as others owned by the firm. Speaking last week to the Baltimore chapter of the Association of Women in the Metal Industries, Jerry Nelson, RG Steel's chief commercial officer, said that "people have expressed interest" in acquiring some RG Steel plants and that "I think it's safe to say everything is on the table.

It's deja vu at Sparrows Point. The Baltimore County plant once again faces wholesale layoffs and a possible sale. The same story has played out every couple of years for the past decade at the steel plant, whose future remains in limbo. The revolving pattern of new owners and layoffs that began when longtime owner Bethlehem Steel declared bankruptcy in 2001 leaves some questioning how much more the Sparrows Point plant can take and remain viable. "How many lives does a mill have?"

The woman who says she represents North American Power is not telling the truth about the benefits of buying electricity from her company. "You can save up to 10, 15, 20 percent of your bill, depending on your usage," she says in a telemarketing call to my house. But the rate she eventually quotes is only about 7 percent less than the standard price offered by Baltimore Gas & Electric — something the average customer would have no way of knowing. And of course the percentage savings won't vary even if my "usage" goes up to that of a steel mill.

The struggling Sparrows Point steel mill could be sold within the next six months, mill owner RG Steel said Monday. "We're not going to be specific at this time," said Bette Kovach, an RG Steel spokeswoman, as she confirmed comments by two company executives that potential buyers were eyeing the Baltimore County plant, as well as others owned by the firm. Speaking last week to the Baltimore chapter of the Association of Women in the Metal Industries, Jerry Nelson, RG Steel's chief commercial officer, said that "people have expressed interest" in acquiring some RG Steel plants and that "I think it's safe to say everything is on the table.

For the first time in 15 years, Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point steel mill has asked for applications from the general public to fill up to 200 jobs at the Baltimore County plant.The request, which has been met by an avalanche of more than 4,500 inquiries, comes as the steel mill is working at full capacity and workers -- whose average age is 50 -- are putting in an average of five to six hours of overtime a week."We want new people," said Duane R. Dunham, president of Bethlehem's Sparrows Point Division.

The Sparrows Point steel mill experienced an outage late last week that caused the suspension of both the basic oxygen steelmaking furnace and the blast furnace, Bette Kovach, a spokeswoman for the mill's owner, RG Steel LLC, said Tuesday. Kovach said that customer orders would not be affected and that the plant was working to resume hot metal operations "as soon as possible later this week. " Kovach declined to provide additional details about the incident. RG Steel is a new subsidiary of the Renco Group, owned by financier Ira Rennert, which bought the steel mill from Severstal North America in March as part of a $1.2 billion deal involving three steel mills.

Sparrows Point has shut down steelmaking operations as the Baltimore County plant struggles to pay its bills and win back customers, workers said Friday. Elizabeth "Bette" Kovach, a spokeswoman for Sparrows Point owner RG Steel, did not return several calls to confirm shuttering of the mill, which employs more than 2,200 workers. But analysts and workers said that managers began meeting with employees Thursday to tell them not to report to work next week. The shutdown comes nine months after RG Steel bought the steel mill from Russian company Severstal.

Thirteen years after a federal court ordered steelmakers in Sparrows Point to clean up the toxic brew surrounding the peninsula just east of Baltimore City, those who live with the air and water pollution say little has been done. They suffer with gritty fallout on their boats, fumes that sting their throats, and fears that swimming, crabbing or fishing near their homes will make them sick. State and federal officials have cited the steel mill owners 22 times since the court decree, and fined it nearly $700,000.

The owners of the Sparrows Point shipyard have filed a federal lawsuit accusing the present and former owners of the old Bethlehem Steel mill on the Patapsco River peninsula of contaminating the dock and ship repair facility with cancer-causing benzene and other hazardous chemicals. SPS Limited Partnership and SPS 35, a limited liability corporation, are demanding cleanup and compensation for their own cleanup costs from Severstal North America, the 120-year-old steel mill's current owner, and from Arcelormittal USA, which owned the mill from 2005 until 2008.

Ownership of the Sparrows Point steel mill in Baltimore County was officially transferred on Thursday from Severstal North America, a subsidiary of a Russian steel and mining company, to the New York-based Renco Group Inc., company officials said. The Renco Group bought the steel mill, as well as mills in West Virginia and Ohio, in a $1.2 billion deal that was struck earlier this month. Renco has said it plans to bring an unspecified number of workers back to Sparrows Point, after most of the mill's operations were idled in July and nearly 1,000 workers were laid off. The company has said it would resume making steel next month.

The tin mill operation at the Sparrows Point steel plant in Baltimore County will begin its shut down later this month and be entirely suspended by the end of April, according to a letter from the top union representative for the tin mill. "I met this morning with management to discuss the present and future plans for our Tin Mill," wrote Michael Baskerville in a letter with Friday's date to mill workers. "The Tin Mill is being put into what is called Asset Preservation Mode, because of the loss of annual contracts.

Most of the Sparrows Point steel mill employees who were laid off several days before Christmas will be returning to work, according to a union representative. "There will be a little bit [of] a trickle, but the bulk of them will be returning this weekend," said Chris MacLarion, acting president of United Steelworkers Local 9477, which represents workers at the Baltimore County steel mill. Employees who work in the initial stages of steel making will return to work first, he said.

Speculation about WCI Steel's bankruptcy started circulating early in 2003. Owned by New York billionaire Ira Rennert and his family, the Warren, Ohio, steelmaker was missing payments to suppliers. A lousy economy and tough competition were bleeding the mill of cash, even as it cut costs by outsourcing functions once performed by plant personnel. "We have no intention of filing for federal bankruptcy protection," a mill spokesman told The Vindicator newspaper of Youngstown, Ohio.

Sparrows Point has shut down steelmaking operations as the Baltimore County plant struggles to pay its bills and win back customers, workers said Friday. Elizabeth "Bette" Kovach, a spokeswoman for Sparrows Point owner RG Steel, did not return several calls to confirm shuttering of the mill, which employs more than 2,200 workers. But analysts and workers said that managers began meeting with employees Thursday to tell them not to report to work next week. The shutdown comes nine months after RG Steel bought the steel mill from Russian company Severstal.

The answering machine at RG Steel's Sparrows Point plant hasn't been working much better than the accounts payable department or the sales operation. "Thank you for calling Severstal's Sparrows Point general office," the voice mail prompt said as recently as a few weeks ago, even though Severstal North America hasn't owned the plant since March. Demand for Sparrows' construction steel is miserable. The plant is still scrambling to regain customers that vanished after it was all but mothballed last year.

Raissa Galitzin, a homemaker and volunteer who survived the German occupation of France during World War II, died of stroke complications June 23 at Sinai Hospital. The Roland Park resident was 87. Born Raissa Mikhailovna Antipoff in Kohlta-Jarva, Estonia, she was the daughter of Russian parents who had fled during the Bolshevik Revolution. She moved with them to the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, where she was educated. During World War II, she was ordered by German government officials to leave school and work in a textile mill.

A Liturgy of the Resurrection with Holy Eucharist for Ralph W. Kettell, retired general foreman of the hot strip mill at the Bethlehem Steel Corp. plant at Sparrows Point, will be held at 10 a.m. today at St. Matthias Episcopal Church, 6400 Belair Road.Mr. Kettell, who was 81 and lived on Ray Mar Avenue in Gardenville, died Tuesday at Stella Maris Hospice after a stroke.He retired in 1972 after 37 years at the steel mill, where he also was a founder and the first president of the Six and Eight Club, a retirement group for supervisors in the hot strip mill.