Letter to the editor: Allegheny County Health Department must ensure clean air

Now that the details related to the settlement agreement between U.S. Steel and the Allegheny County Health Department are final, it’s time for ACHD to fulfill two promises: Updating coke oven regulations and devising a plan to combat weather-exacerbated air pollution events.

It’s no secret Allegheny County has an air pollution problem. It’s also not a surprise that our topography makes the area prone to weather inversions. Our region grappled with killer inversions in the ’40s and ’70s, yet we are still pleading for a policy that would allow the ACHD to rein in industrial emissions during strong inversions.

While implementing regulations that impose corrective action requirements on industry during short-term pollution events would help protect public health, ACHD must also act to stem industrial pollution every day by strengthening coke oven regulations and ramping up enforcement.

Air pollution near Clairton Coke Works isn’t a weather-related anomaly — it’s a year-round burden on residents. The concentration of hydrogen sulfide at the Liberty monitor exceeded the state air quality standard 46 times last year. Yes, those exceedances occurred in clusters around two inversion events, but at least one such exceedance occurred every month. In addition to hydrogen sulfide, Clairton Coke Works is the largest stationary source contributor of particulate matter, benzene and volatile organic compounds in the county.

We have an acute and chronic air pollution problem that ACHD must address. We all deserve clean air, and it’s ACHD’s responsibility to take the regulatory actions necessary to ensure we have it.

Rachel Filippini

Regent Square

The writer is executive director of Group Against Smog and Pollution (gasp-pgh.org).