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Show Geneva Steel President Speaks On Fluoride Control at Plant Some 400 farm, civic, and business busi-ness leaders from Utah County heard a report Wednesday evening on the intesive, multi-million dollar dol-lar program conducted by U. S. Steel to successfully control aid pollution and emission of florides at its Geneva Works. Speaking before the First Annual An-nual Agriculture - Industry Banquet, Ban-quet, Leslie B. Worthington, president presi-dent 'of Columbia-Geneva Steel Division ,said the seven-year effort was made to '"solve one of the most unique and perplexing problems pro-blems ever encounted in the operation oper-ation of a steel plant." The banquet, ban-quet, held at the Wasatch School, was sponsorer by the Provo Chamber Cham-ber of Commerce. Mr. Worthington referred to the three-phase program carried out in research and installation of corrective cor-rective equipment, claim settlement settle-ment and agricultural research as "poineering for prosperity in Utah County and the West." He said the costly effort was made "without "with-out a single penny of return on our capital and without an increase in our steelmaking capacity. "When the Geneva Plant was built by the Federal Government during the early days of the war no one considered the possibility that the iron ores from the mines in Iron County, Utah, unlike iron ore from Minesota or other eastern sources might be dangerously high in fluorides. It was not until millions of tons of steel had rolled from the big plant that we were startled to learn that these high fluoride Utah ores were causing trouble in Utah County." he said. Tracing the steps taken by U. S. Steel to solve the fluoride problem, Mr. Worthington pointed out that more than 12,000 tests were run by scientists from Stanford Research Re-search Institute and engineers before be-fore the installation of corrective equipment in 1955. This involved "many, many months of painstaking painstak-ing and concentrated efforts" by the finsct research brains in the country, de indicated. Mr. Worthington said the research re-search and installation of corrective correc-tive equipment at Geneva had cost U. S. Steel $8,689,000. "During this period of research and development," Mr. Worthington Worthing-ton continued, "we invited dairy operators of Utah County to submit sub-mit claims to us with the understanding under-standing that those claims would be investigated and that a settle-mente settle-mente of the alleged damages would be negotiated whereever that appeared to be the appropriate appropri-ate course of action." As a result, he said that some 880 claims from Utah County farmers were settled at a cost of $4,450,234. Mr. Worthington went on to describe de-scribe the organization of Geneva's agricultural department, "something "some-thing new for us," and the employment employ-ment of mtn who had the training train-ing to set up and operate Geneva's greenhouses and laboratories to investigate in-vestigate the fluoride problem. "We relied on the judgment of these me and on the judgment of the scientists at the agricultural colleges at Logan and elsewhere around the country; and we relied cn the genuine interest and good faith of our Utah County neighbors. neigh-bors. "Our people have examined more than 60,000 head of livestock; we have maintained rather complete data on the ups and downs of the oattle market, we have supported (Continued on page 4) Fluoride Control (Continued from page 1) and have cooperated with the Agricultural Agri-cultural College in its several programs pro-grams relating to the effects of fluorine on sheep, cattle and vegetation. veg-etation. We would like to believe that all of this work which we have undertaken has contributed, in some small measure, to a better understanding of some of our mutual mut-ual problems." Referring to the recently settled suits against U. S. Steel by farmers, farm-ers, most of them living outside -f Utah County, Mr. Worthington said : "We had no alternative but to resist these actions brought by people whose interest in the prosperity pros-perity of Utah County could not have been anything but remote. "There were recoveries by 24 plaintiffs of $12,075.43 but, in the light of the original demands by the 305 plaintiffs which totaled over $25 million plus the shutdown zi the plant we feel our decision to fight this thing through has been justified by the Judgment in these rases." Concluding his remarks, Mr. Woi'thington emphasized: "U. S. Steel will always recognize recog-nize its responsibilities in this community. We assume certain responsibilities when we became property owners a.nd taxpayers in the state; we hope as we hope, you do, that we shall continue to prosper! pros-per! we believe that our annual payroll running well in excess of $30,000,000 has bad a beneficial effect upon the economy of this area and that thereby all of you directly or indirectly do indeed have a stake in Geneva. "We pledge to you again, we will continue to be good neighbors; we believe our record of continued growth is a good measure of oxir faith in you, in Utah, and in ourselves." |