On May 16, Pittsburghers will go to the polls to elect a new Allegheny County executive. What’s at stake in this election is literally a matter of life and death.

The American Lung Association’s (ALA) State of the Air report issued April 18 documents that the Pittsburgh region is the 20th worst out of 223 regions in the United States for deadly small particle air pollution, with the worst air quality of any place east of Denver. Youth asthma in Clairton, Woodland Hills and Allegheny Valley affects one in four children.

As many of us have come to understand, these fine particles are microscopic, get deep into lungs and the bloodstream and can lead to death and disability.

Patrick Dowd, Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) acting director of health, responded to the report by touting past gains, likely to deflect attention from the internal dysfunction at ACHD, when he stated that, “Allegheny County is no longer the smoky region it once was, and has not been for a long time.”

This is a mere smokescreen to mask ACHD’s deficiencies that the ALA doesn’t measure, glaring weaknesses such as the following:

• ACHD is vastly underfunded, a fact made clear when the Board of Health made a recent attempt to divert 25% of the Clean Air Fund, the repository of the fines paid by polluters, to fill in a gap in the ACHD budget. While final action on this effort is pending, it signals a willingness to ignore the needs of those living in environmental justice communities, closest to the worst sources of pollution, who desperately need indoor air filters and support services.

• ACHD’s acting Health Department director has no public health or medical credentials.

• Some members of the board and committees of ACHD have conflicts of interest, placing representatives of some of our region’s worst polluters in decision-making and advisory positions.

• ACHD’s online air pollution complaint system, which is the only way to report an air pollution problem, is unnecessarily difficult to navigate for the public, and impossible to use for those with disabilities or without internet access.

• ACHD has failed to use the over 70,000 odor complaints lodged by residents through SmellPGH, an app developed by CREATE Lab at CMU, in cooperation with ACHD.

• ACHD’s recently departed Health Department director ignored multiple formal requests to meet with residents who have suffered from the health consequences of air pollution.

• ACHD has failed to warn the community during emergencies such as the fire and explosion at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works on Christmas Eve 2018, when it took 16 days to issue a warning, and after which ACHD allowed the plant to operate without air pollution abatement equipment for over three months.

• ACHD’s response to the fire at the Metalico metal recycling plant on Neville Island three years later, when local residents were forced to evacuate, directed residents to their local fire department for information about how to protect themselves, rather than performing this vital function themselves.

In an open letter to candidates, we asked each to provide their plan to strengthen the ACHD. After multiple requests, three candidates responded, Sara Innamoroto, Dave Fawcett and Michael Lamb. Their responses are posted on our website at www.swpaths.org.

The Allegheny County executive has oversight and control of the ACHD. Rather than galvanizing our civic, governmental, corporate, health care, academic and technical assets to solve the problem of rampant air pollution under his 12-year watch, he has directed that this crisis be swept under the rug. As a result, he leaves behind a region that, while there have been improvements, is one of the worst 1% of places in America for cancer, lung and heart diseases caused by air pollution, with an unnecessarily high mortality rate.

Our chance to change that is May 16. I encourage everyone to vote in the primary election for a new Allegheny County executive.

Howard M. Rieger is volunteer coordinator of East End Neighbors: Fight Pollution and Southwest PA Grassroots Town Halls.

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