From Steel Mill to Scrap Yard? The Agony of Sparrows Point Drags On

[In These Times]

BALTIMORE-–Once the mightiest steel-making complex in the western world, Maryland’s Sparrows Point mill was sold for scrap at a bankruptcy sale last week.
In a confused and uncertain process, RG Steel, the absentee owner of the mill, announced it had auctioned the property to a company that specializes in the demolition and scrapping of outdated industrial sites. The sale, however, has not been confirmed by the bankruptcy court, and thorny legal and financial issues seem likely to prevent any speedy consummation of a deal to dismantle the mill.
“Accurate and reliable information is just not available right now,” says Fronda Cohen, a spokesperson for Kevin Kamenetz, the top elected official in Baltimore County. The county, which rings the city of Baltimore and embraces the vast mill and several communities dominated by Sparrows Point steelworkers, is officially objecting to the sale, Cohen says.


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[blindpig]

They will raze the place and put in high end waterfront housing, mebbe a countryclub/goofcourse. Thus has been the fate of most waterfront land in the vicinity, it was hard to believe what I saw on my last visit. The real estate bund rules.

There ain't enough workers left to occupy a site of that size even if the USW found the gumption to do so. Waiting on, begging for some capitalist to provide some less than worst fate, supposedly, it's disgraceful and humiliating. This is the final insult.

Expropriate the bastards.

[anaxarchos]

They will raze the place and put in high end waterfront housing, mebbe a countryclub/goofcourse. Thus has been the fate of most waterfront land in the vicinity, it was hard to believe what I saw on my last visit. The real estate bund rules.

There ain't enough workers left to occupy a site of that size even if the USW found the gumption to do so. Waiting on, begging for some capitalist to provide some less than worst fate, supposedly, it's disgraceful and humiliating. This is the final insult.

Expropriate the bastards.

No Giza or Luxor will be left behind. They bulldoze their monuments.

I watched a video of them demolishing River Rouge some years back. It made me sadder than their best soap operas. 'Course, the inhabitants had been dispersed long before.

"Half on land and half on water, and in truth only half on both..."

[Dhalgren]

countryclub/goofcourse

Best typo of the year...

[blindpig]

No Giza or Luxor will be left behind. They bulldoze their monuments.

I watched a video of them demolishing River Rouge some years back. It made me sadder than their best soap operas. 'Course, the inhabitants had been dispersed long before.

"Half on land and half on water, and in truth only half on both..."

They launched one Liberty Ship per day during the war, extraordinary, employed 30,000, at least one steelworker lived on every block. Workers had little fishing cottages('shore house') where the Mcmansions now stand.

Fuck, there goes my blood pressure.

[blindpig]

Best typo of the year...

No typo, it is part of my lexicon and I use it at every opportunity.

If the shoe fits........

[Dhalgren]

I am going to use it as often as I can - with permission, of course.

[blindpig]

Death Notice For A Steel Mill: Sparrows Point To Be Liquidated, Razed


A new "cold mill" facility was opened at Sparrows Point in 1999 in hopes of reviving the fortunes of the declining steel production complex near Baltimore. On Thursday, it was announced the cold mill would be dismantled, effectively ending any chance that some 2,000 jobs at Sparrows Point could be saved. (Baltimore County Communicatons Office)

BALTIMORE –Today, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz declared the 125-year-old Sparrows Point steel mill officially dead.

“A century of steelmaking as we know it has come to an end,” Kamenetz said at a media briefing. “[The owners] have indicated they are going to liquidate every remaining asset and bring the structure to the ground.”

The hastily arranged press conference followed a Dec. 12 report in American Metal Market that the most modern part of the Sparrows Point mill had been sold to Nucor Corp., one of the country’s largest remaining steelmakers.

The industrial portion of the mill built in 1999, called the "cold mill," is considered the most valuable part of the huge Sparrows Point complex, which also includes a giant blast furnace and other older facilities. Without the cold mill, any hope of restarting steelmaking at the Maryland site is effectively gone, Kamenetz asserted.

Nucor spokesperson Katherine Miller confirmed Thursday that the company would take the Sparrows Point cold mill apart and use the pieces as needed in Nucor’s four other cold mill operations in the United States. She said no schedule for dismantling had been established yet.

The search for a new owner who might resume steel production at Sparrows Point had been on the agenda for Kamenetz and the United Steelworkers of America (USW) since the current owner, RG Steel LLC, filed for bankruptcy in June. At that time, some 2,000 workers lost their jobs.

The search for a buyer for Sparrows Point was ultimately fruitless, and Kamanetz said he had been assured there was no meaningful chance of preserving steelmaking jobs there. Attention turns now to converting the site to other uses that will produce good jobs for Maryland residents sometime in the future, he said.

But bad blood lingers. Kamenetz said that USW Local 9477 President Joe Rosel “was angry, and he has a right to be angry.”

Kamenetz indicated that Rosel has questions about whether RG Steel acted in good faith and is not convinced that all options to reopen the mill have been fully explored.

Neither Rosel nor any other representative of USW was immediately available for comment.

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entr...be_dismantled/


First meeting of steelworkers after announcement.

http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/201...h-the-years/#1

Extensive slide show at link. It won't let me copy but one photo shows a highway sign, "Sparrows Point Private Property". Bastards.