Already, Middletown Works ranks in the top 10 polluters statewide for several health-harming contaminants, according to a 2024 report from Industrious Labs. Back then, Middletown Works still ran a hyper-polluting facility to make coke on-site. Another local, Amy Wray, wrote to the Ohio EPA, ​“If it’s going to increase pollutants then we don’t want it. Still, Cliffs has substantial support from locals who see the plan as an environmentally sound way to keep the Middletown Works going. Besides protecting more than 2,000 existing jobs at the Middletown Works, the new facilities would have created 170 new permanent positions in addition to 1,200 construction jobs.