“What’s Past Should Not Be Prologue When It Comes To Our Region’s Air Quality”

OpEd By Howard Rieger

In response to the 2022 “State of the Air” report released in April by the American Lung Association (ALA), the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) ran a victory lap for what it referred to as measurable progress in Greater Pittsburgh’s air quality.  

Achieving measurable progress doesn’t mean that our current level of air pollution is not a problem; to the contrary, public health research confirms that it contributes to mortality and disease.  On top of that, it took a pandemic and a virtual shutdown of the country to get us there. 

But fair enough.  Our grades improved to a “Failure” for Ozone, a “Failure” for 24-hour particle pollution (PM2.5), and barely a “Pass” for annual particle pollution. While two F’s and a pass are better than straight F’s, which were our previous grades year after year, would we be thrilled to bring home that report card when we were in school?

Not content to leave well enough alone, ACHD raised the stakes when it made the unfounded claim that the way they got to this result was reliance on, “…the public, industry leaders, public officials and environmental groups to help shape policy.”

Here’s what an examination of each of those claims reveals.

With regard to the public, ACHD states on its website that it wants “residents to have access to information on air quality in real time,” and that “public interest is crucial to improving air quality in our county,” but its Air Quality Dispersion and Outlook reports posted on their website are only updated Monday-Friday before noon, and it fails to pay attention to 70,000 SmellPGH reports of bad air over the last few years submitted by the public, even though the SmellPGH app was developed by CREATE Lab at CMU, with input from ACHD.

The claim about industry leaders is at best hyperbole, since our region’s number one polluter, U.S. Steel (USS), is once again suing ACHD for trying to do its job by fining the company $1.8 million for Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) emissions from its Clairton Coke Works.  

What public official might ACHD be referring to in the development of its policies?  Allegheny County Executive, Rich Fitzgerald, would be the most relevant one, since ACHD operates under his control.  But that is the same Rich Fitzgerald who was