The owner of the steel mill in Georgetown continues to mull over the future of the plant’s melt shop as it tries to balance financial realities with the goal of bringing the site back to full production. Liberty Steel Georgetown shut down the shop in September, saying it needs to invest $25 million to replace aging equipment as the mill hits the half-century mark. Among the planned work: a new electric-arc furnace; improvements to the water and natural gas lines; a new electrical system; and strengthening the building’s foundation. That work has yet to begin. Liberty says improvements are still on the way, but it has no specific timetable. The mill is still producing wire rod by taking steel made at a sister plant in Peoria, Ill., and processing it through Georgetown’s hot rolling mill.Meanwhile, some of the mill’s roughly 150 workers are spending their days sprucing up the landscaping and dismantling an old direct-reduced iron facility that neighbors have called an eyesore. It’s all an attempt to avoid laying off employees, even if they aren’t actively making steel.The beautification project “is in response to feedback from those living and working nearby, and is in keeping with commitments made to the city authorities during a rezoning process last summer,” a Liberty spokesman said this week. As much of the plant sits idle, recent legal action is calling into question the Georgetown plant’s financial stability. Cleveland-based Stein Inc. sued Liberty in December, claiming the mill operator defaulted on a deal in which Stein was to handle scrap metal and process slag waste at the South Carolina plant. Stein alleges Liberty started falling behind on payments in early 2019 and then stopped paying altogether. Stein claims Liberty now owes $1.8 million. Liberty says Stein routinely overcharged for the work it did, and the mill owner this week filed a breach of contract lawsuit against the contractor. Both lawsuits are pending in federal court in Charleston. The Stein case provides a peek into production at the Georgetown plant, which has the capacity to produce 62,500 metric tons of steel monthly when at full strength.