22 Months of Emissions Violations Lead to $276,540 Fine Against Magnus Products in Braddock

Editor’s Note: The Allegheny County Health Department periodically updates its website to include documents related to air quality enforcement actions. As part of our watchdog work, GASP monitors this webpage and reports on the air quality violations posted there.

Longstanding emissions and maintenance issues led to Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) to issue more than $276,000 in fines against Braddock-based Magnus Products.

Little bit of background: Magnus Products owns and operates a facility that receives by-products from U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thomson facility, including furnace flue dust, slag and sludge, mill scale, and coke fines and forms the moist mix into briquettes. 

Those finished briquettes are piled onsite with a radial stacker and then loaded onto railcars and sent back to Edgar Thomson to be used in the blast furnaces. 

Emissions from the rotary kiln - the piece of equipment at the center of the enforcement action - are controlled by a cyclone and a fabric filter.

Got it? Good - now let’s get back to that enforcement order, issued by ACHD on Nov. 10, 2025, but only recently uploaded to the department’s docket.

In addition to missing deadlines associated with the submission of required annual and semi-annual reports, ACHD said the company exceeded myriad emissions limits - some by more than 1,900 percent. 

The enforcement order also alleges that Magnus failed to consistently operate its cement silo bin filter with good air pollution control practice resulting in excess emissions. 

“Magnus operated the rotary kiln without a complaint stack test in violation of permitted limits resulting in excess emissions of volatile organic compounds and particulate matter for 22 months,” the document reads.

Here's an excerpt:

ACHD representatives observed multiple chains with no chain guards.  ACHD representatives observed excessive amounts of cement accumulation on the top of the cement silo bin filter. ACHD representatives also observed cement accumulation on the cement silo hand railings, cement silo walkway, and the wall of the adjacent building (see Appendix A). 

ACHD representatives requested that Magnus representatives open the cement silo bin filter door so ACHD could inspect the individual bags in the cement silo bin filter. Magnus representatives could not initially open the door because cement had accumulated around the door and door frame. Magnus utilized tools to remove cement accumulation to open the door for inspection. During the inspection, ACHD representatives found a bag was defective, and a Magnus maintenance worker confirmed the bag was defective.  

ACHD representatives then requested to review the Magnus cement silo inspection records.

ACHD representatives reviewed the cement silo inspection records for March 2025, through April 9, 2025. Inspection records indicated "ok" for each inspection. ACHD representatives informed Magnus that, due to the identification of a defective bag in the cement -6- silo bin filter and amount of cement deposition in the area, it was ACHD's belief that the cement silo was not inspected with any routine frequency and the records indicating compliance were 

not valid.  

You can read the entire enforcement order here.

Meanwhile, court documents reveal that U.S. Steel ended its relationship with Magnus in October 2025 and filed suit against the company two months later, accusing it of breach of contract.