County's air pollution plan draws criticism

Mar 5, 2010 — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Don Hopey

Mar. 5, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Environmental groups say an Allegheny County Health Department plan to reduce sooty air pollution in the Liberty-Clairton area does not protect the health of more than 80 families in nearby Lincoln.

The Group Against Smog and Pollution and the Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future are urging state and federal regulators to reject the county plan that shows air at its monitors in Clairton and Liberty will improve because of operational improvements at U.S. Steel Corp.'s (NYSE:XSS) (NYSE:X) Clairton Coke Works, but air in Lincoln will continue to fall short of federal health-based standards for fine airborne particulates.

"The county's air quality plan is too little, too late. Worse, the plan fails to provide the basic protections of the [federal] Clean Air Act to at least 80 families living near the coke works," said Joseph Osborne, GASP's legal director. He added that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should declare the plan unacceptable and return it to the county.

The county's federally mandated State Implementation Plan for the Liberty-Clairton Nonattainment Area must demonstrate that pollution reductions will allow the area to meet national ambient air quality standards for PM2.5, airborne particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers in size.

The fine, almost invisible, soot particles are a danger to human health because they can be breathed more deeply into the lungs than larger soot particles. Numerous studies have shown they can cause a variety of health problems, including asthma attacks, cardiac disease and respiratory distress.

Guillermo Cole, a county Health Department spokesman, said the county followed the EPA guidelines that require attainment at monitoring sites but not in unmonitored areas where a single source has an major impact. He said the modeling work done to assess pollution in Lincoln was optional work done by the department and shows that pollution levels in the community "may be higher."

In a four-page letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, the environmental groups say the Health Department has misinterpreted EPA guidelines and as a result will "expose the individuals and families in the neighborhoods to extra health risks associated with exposure to illegal levels of PM2.5."

The Allegheny County Board of Health is scheduled to vote Wednesday whether to accept the department's plan and submit it to state and federal environmental agencies.

"We want the Allegheny County Board of Health ... to understand who is being sacrificed," said Joylette Portlock, PennFuture's outreach coordinator. "These families -- children, and grandchildren, mothers, fathers, and grandparents, working people and retired -- deserve the same right to clean air that all citizens have. This clean air plan must be improved and quickly."

Joining PennFuture and GASP in calling for EPA to reject the county plan are the American Lung Association, the Environmental Integrity Project and the Sierra Club.

Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.

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