By now, you’ve probably heard about the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions from large electric generating units. Right now, 11 states in the northeastern United States participate in the program, and Pennsylvania is looking to be the 12th. GASP has blogged regularly about the program, submitted formal comments on the regulation proposed by the Environmental Quality Board (EQB), and is now watching an unexpected turn of events. Here’s what’s going on: Last week, the full Pennsylvania Senate passed a Senate Concurrent Regulatory Review Resolution that disapproves the RGGI regulations. But because the Senate’s action here doesn’t seem to be contemplated by Pennsylvania’s Regulatory Review Act, it is not at all clear what this might mean. According to a press release from Sen. Joe Pittman’s office (FYI: Pittman, R-District 41, is the vice chair of the Senate Environmental Resources & Energy Committee), the concurrent resolution next moves to the state House of Representatives, which has a window of 10 legislative days or 30 calendar days to vote on the resolution. Also according to Senator Pittman: If the House passes the concurrent resolution, it will be presented to Gov. Tom Wolf. If he vetoes the resolution, it will then return to the Senate, which can override the veto with a two-thirds majority vote. But for the override of the veto to become fully effective, it must also receive a two-thirds majority in the House. But here’s the thing: Under the Regulatory Review Act, Pittman’s timeline is all wrong. “The House would seem to have had only until October 2, 2021 to vote to kill the RGGI regulations,” GASP senior attorney John Baillie explained. “The House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee approved a concurrent resolution to kill the regulations on September 2, 2021, and the Act says that the full House must act on such an approved resolution within the earlier of 10 legislative days or 30 days on the calendar.” The Environmental Health Digest put it another way: “There is no provision in the Regulatory Review Act for a second time period to act on the resolution…This is not even debatable, but this Senate and House do what they want.” Further complicating matters, Attorney General Josh Shapiro recently announced his opposition to the RGGI regulations. Under the Regulatory Review Act, the office of the attorney general must review all regulations for “form and legality” before they take effect. “Even if the RGGI regulations survive the expected attempts by the House and Senate to prevent them from taking effect, they will face challenges in court,” Baillie added. Opposition to the RGGI regulation is generally based on the notions that: The regulation will drive up electricity prices in Pennsylvania That the regulation imposes a tax, which only the General Assembly (not the EQB or the Governor) has the constitutional power to levy; and That the EQB lacks the statutory authority to adopt the regulation under Pennsylvania’s Air Pollution Control Act. Despite the opposition of the General Assembly, RGGI has had an overwhelming amount of public support. Dozens of GASP members submitted comments in support of the RGGI, but you can still give the Legislature your 2 cents. While the people in Harrisburg sort out their mess, we encourage you to email your state Representative to let them know you support the RGGI and ask for a vote against Senate Concurrent Regulatory Review Resolution 1. You can find contact information for your state representative here.

GASP attended the Allegheny County Board of Health meeting Wednesday to once again request that officials provide an update to the public about ongoing exceedances of the state hydrogen sulfide standard in the Mon Valley and what’s being done to stave off the associated rotten-egg stench. Here are the full comments presented by GASP Executive Director Patrick Campbell: Dear Allegheny County Board of Health: Good afternoon. My name is Patrick Campbell, I am the new Executive Director at the Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP), an environmental watchdog organization that’s been working to improve air quality for more than 50 years. Thank you for the opportunity to present comments today. As you’re aware, GASP has come before this board to express our continued concerns about hydrogen sulfide (H2S) malodors impacting local residents in the Mon Valley. To the Allegheny County Health Department’s credit, there’s been a good faith effort to at least better understand the source of the odors through the deployment of additional H2S monitoring. But the need for more robust communication from the department to the general public about the H2S issue is still sorely needed. But residents who live in the Mon Valley (and those who reside downwind of it) have been clear: This year there’s been no reprieve from the rotten egg odor they are all too familiar with. Our members have told us as recently as last week about having to shutter their windows and avoid outdoor exercise on otherwise beautiful days because of the overwhelming stench. Frankly, this isn’t the way people should have to live in one of America’s so-called most livable cities. Despite improvement, air quality remains not only one of Allegheny County’s most pressing public health issues but also a quality-of-life problem. And I am here today to again implore the health department to do more to acknowledge these ongoing H2S exceedances, what is causing them, and what plan is in place to abate them. Numbers don’t lie: In all of 2020, Allegheny County had 25 exceedances of the PA’s hydrogen sulfide standard. Meanwhile, with more than two months left in 2021, there have already been 15 exceedances at the North Braddock monitor and 39 more at Liberty. The frequency of these air quality exceedances is truly a shame and a burden on local residents. But even more shameful is that the Allegheny County Health Department has remained largely silent on the issue. Yes, on April 1st, the ACHD issued a Notice of Violation against US Steel for exceedances of the hydrogen sulfide ambient air quality standard at the Liberty monitor. But we have heard nothing since and the H2S exceedances persist. Monitoring air quality data and alerting residents when something isn’t right is a duty GASP takes seriously, but we can only tell residents what the data say. We count on the health department to fill in the important details like the cause of these continually elevated levels of H2S and steps being taken to eliminate the issue. The simple fact is that air quality doesn’t have to be like this, and very recently wasn’t like this: Air quality monitor data show that over the first seven weeks of 2021, H2S levels were far lower compared to what we’ve experienced since. What chanWe wish we knew. But the fact remains that the public lacks the expertise to determine those answers. At the end of the day, ACHD is the sole party that has the capacity to resolve and address the issue. ACHD is planning to deploy additional H2S monitoring as part of a wider air quality study in the Mon Valley but the results can’t come soon enough for residents sick and tired of the stench – residents deserve answers now. And we are calling on ACHD to provide them. In other business, the Board of Health unanimously approved making more than $578,000 from the Clean Air Fund available to the Health Department to cover normal operating expenditures in 2021 per the ACHD’s request. Why that amount? Allegheny County’s air pollution regulations allow the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) to use 5 percent of the Clean Air Fund balance annually to “fund the normal operating costs of the County’s Air Quality Program.”

A Neville Island resin manufacturer last week appealed an enforcement order issued Oct. 5 by the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) that included more than $62,000 in civil penalties for alleged violations of its permit and local air pollution control regulations. In its appeal, Neville Chemical requests that an ACHD hearing officer vacate the enforcement order, which covers six alleged air pollution violations stemming from a Sept. 2 equipment breakdown. In case you missed it, here’s what ACHD officials said in a news release Oct. 5 regarding the incident and enforcement action. In the early morning hours of September 2, first responders, including Allegheny County Emergency Services and Ohio Township Police, responded to the Neville Chemical Company following reports of a strong odor. The Health Department also sent enforcement inspectors to investigate the source of the odor. All breakdowns at a permitted facility must be reported to the Health Department within one hour. In this case, the Health Department received the initial breakdown report 33 hours after the incident. Neville Chemical Company reported that one of the bottom valves leaked on a heat polymerization still, allowing raw material to enter a resin kettle and release a hydrocarbon mixture into the air. Per the enforcement order, Neville Chemical Company must submit a corrective action plan to ensure that foreign volatile material does not enter their resin kettles in the future. They have 60 days from the date of the order to submit their plan. The company was also assessed a civil penalty of $62,075. That penalty is based on the following violations: Exceeding the short-term emissions limit allowed by the Title V permit for Volatile Organic Compounds, Exceeding the short- and long-term emissions limits allowed by the Title V permit for Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs), Work practices standards violations, Failure to submit a breakdown report on time In its appeal, Neville Chemical argues – in essence – that the alleged reporting delays were mischaracterized, that some fines overlapped with others for the same violation, and that the fines were not consistent with ACHD’s Civil Penalty Policy. Neville Chemical previously ran afoul of ACHD’s air pollution regulations in 2018 by missing and failing required emissions testing. Those matters were ultimately settled with a modest fine and revised testing schedule. While GASP credits ACHD with taking swift enforcement action after the most recent incident, we again call on ACHD officials to address what health impacts if any were associated with the breakdown event, which resulted in a facility process releasing a year’s worth of hazardous emissions in a period of just five hours. “The entire facility is permitted to emit over 16 tons of HAPs annually and neither the Enforcement Order nor ACHD’s press release listed the specific chemical pollutants emitted on Sept. 2,” Mulcahy said. “I would like to see ACHD – as the County’s air quality and public health experts – address any potential adverse health impacts to the community that might have resulted from this incident.” You can read more about the enforcement order here. You can read the appeal brief submitted by Neville Chemical on the ACHD website. Editor’s Note: GASP follows ACHD enforcement actions closely and will keep you posted as this case progresses.

At GASP we review air quality data the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) publishes on a regular basis. Today we noticed previously published data disappear from ACHD’s Daily Summary report. This is an issue that happens from time to time and wanted to take time to explain if you’ve ever noticed a similar phenomenon. This particular case started Tuesday morning when GASP staff reviewed the hourly air quality data ACHD publishes on its website here. The report page showing data from the Liberty monitor on Oct. 25 appeared as we’d expect: full of numbers. But when we checked the same report today, the Oct. 25 entries (as well as entries from Oct. 23, 24, and part of the Oct. 26) for H2S and SO2 were replaced with a letter “C” or “I”. We asked ACHD for an explanation. Credit to them for a quick response: “Yesterday one of our engineers on the monitoring team fixed [a monitor malfunction] and today we are doing diagnostic testing to confirm that it is running correctly again. The monitoring team invalidated all the hours affected by the malfunction; these hours are marked “I” in the daily summary. After the diagnostic testing today, we will update the data over the past 24 hours if needed.” Of course, glitches happen, and we are glad to see ACHD take seriously the job of ensuring that only accurate, vetted data are published. In fact, this is a distinct benefit of having regular, required monitor maintenance. When questions arise about specific data, there is an agency required to comply with federal monitoring standards and keep related records. In this case, specifically, the timing of the malfunction was inopportune: Hydrogen sulfide levels at North Braddock exceeded the Pennsylvania 24-hour standard on Oct. 25, which makes H2S levels at Liberty a topic of great interest. But as we said above, GASP looks at ACHD monitoring data regularly and these issues happen at what could be characterized as both consequential and inconsequential moments. Going forward we hope ACHD will continue to be open and transparent in communications about these issues when they arise.

West Mifflin Councilman Dan Davis said that over the last few years, he could just “see the tide changing.” Davis, an environmental consultant, said a stream of new grant funding opportunities emerged aimed at helping local municipalities mitigate the burgeoning impacts of climate change. The borough eagerly sought those opportunities, he said, and were awarded with grants and entered community partnerships that have made West Mifflin a cleaner, greener community. Grant funding helped West Mifflin purchase three electric vehicles - two Chevy Bolts for code enforcement and a pickup truck for its police department. And a 2023 partnership with Duquesne Light Company landed the community six EV charging stations that are available for public use in addition to supporting the borough’s electric fleet. That wasn’t the only good grant news the borough received last year: It also applied for and received a $748,339 grant through Allegheny County Health Department’s Clean Air Fund to replace its existing 2007 diesel-powered refuse truck with an electric rear-loading garbage packer. That funding will also be used to install two electric vehicle charging stations and an electrical service upgrade that includes the installation of new electric infrastructure to ensure “that the planned conversion to an all-electric municipal vehicle fleet is practicable for the borough.” When talking about current and future sustainability projects - whether it be the conversion to LED lighting or the development of a state-of-the-art community park and recreation center - Davis stressed that two things make a big difference: Being proactive and collaborative. Both, he said, have been instrumental to West Mifflin’s green renaissance. He credits CONNECT and the relationships that started there with helping him and fellow West Mifflin officials understand the emerging Climate-related issues facing municipalities (like flooding, aging infrastructure, and landslides), navigate funding opportunities, and foster key relationships leading to intermunicipal collaboration. Through CONNECT, for example, he was introduced to GASP. He attended our air quality bootcamp for municipal officials and won a PurpleAir monitor for his community for attending. Davis said making the connection not only  helped him garner a new piece of technology for the borough, but also inspired him to learn more about local air quality, inversions, and sources of pollution. His advice to local municipal officials who haven’t yet taken the sustainability plunge? “Dip a toe in,” he said with a laugh. “It’s easy to incorporate when you really start looking at it.”

By 9 a.m. Monday, concentrations of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) were so high at Allegheny County Health Department’s air quality monitor in North Braddock Borough that an exceedance of Pennsylvania’s 24-hour average was already guaranteed. That makes 15 exceedances of the state standard so far this year at that site for H2S, which has a tell-tale rotten egg odor those in the Mon Valley (and folks downwind of it) endure all too often. For those keeping track, there have also been 39 H2S exceedances at ACHD’s air quality monitor in Liberty Borough. The frequency of these air quality exceedances is truly a shame and a burden on local residents. Even more shameful is the total silence from the Allegheny County Health Department. “Monitoring air quality data and alerting residents when something isn’t right is a duty we take seriously,” GASP Executive Director Patrick Campbell said. “But we can only tell folks what the data say. We count on the health department to fill in the important details like the cause of these continually elevated levels of H2S and steps being taken to eliminate the issue.” The simple fact is that air quality doesn’t have to be like this, and very recently wasn’t like this: ACHD air quality monitor data show that over the first seven weeks of 2021, H2S levels paled in comparison to what we’ve experienced since then. What changed? We’d love to know. But the public is ill-equipped and lacks the expertise to determine those answers. ACHD is the sole party that has the capacity to resolve and address the issue. ACHD is planning to deploy additional H2S monitoring as part of a wider air quality study in the Mon Valley but the results can’t come soon enough for residents sick and tired of the stench.

UPDATE: U.S. Steel filed a reply brief on Oct. 22. You can read it on the Allegheny County Health Department legal docket. The Allegheny County Health Department was clear in its response to a U.S. Steel legal brief asking a hearing officer to determine that proposed rulemaking regarding coke oven battery emissions does not comply with a high-profile, controversial settlement agreement: The company’s request for relief should be DENIED. Before we get too much more in detail about ACHD’s Oct. 8 response brief, let’s take a quick step back to fill in some of the background details about this whole dispute resolution issue. GASP was the first to tell you about U.S. Steel disputing the proposed coke oven regulations we’ve been advocating for over the past two years. Here’s an excerpt from the blog we wrote then in case you missed it: In a move that should not surprise *anybody* who’s been paying *any* attention to U.S. Steel’s history of dragging regulators through the courts, the company earlier this month asked an Allegheny County Health Department hearing officer to put the kibosh on long-sought updates to local coke oven regulations expected to help better protect public health. In a brief filed Sept. 9 and posted to ACHD’s appeals docket on Sept. 13, attorneys for U.S. Steel asked the hearing officer to order ACHD to stop pursuing the proposed rulemaking further. You can read more about the settlement agreement here, but here’s the long and short of it: The agreement, which came in the wake of a Dec. 24, 2018 fire at the Clairton Coke Works that knocked out pollution control devices for months, required U.S. Steel to meet certain improvement mandates and subjected it to quarterly stipulated penalties if those improvements were not made. At the end of the day, in exchange for those concessions, U.S. Steel avoided enormous compounded daily fines for air quality violations stemming from the fire and its aftermath. As we noted last time: When the agreement was first announced, both ACHD and U.S. Steel said the agreement would prevent arduous, drawn-out court battles over those potential fines. But U.S. Steel is now arguing that in exchange for the concessions taken by the company, ACHD agreed not to impose more stringent limits for coke ovens without first determining whether or not they were technically feasible and would correlate with measurable coke oven emissions reductions at the health department’s air quality monitor in Liberty borough. In its Oct. 8 brief, however, ACHD described U.S. Steel’s legal arguments “nonsensical,” “specious,” and even “absurd,” and maintained that it can and must impose more stringent limits and that proposed changes to the county coke oven regulations were necessary to ensure they are consistent with state rules. ACHD noted that there would be dire consequences if its Air Quality Program fails in this duty. “Moreover, the Pennsylvania Air Resources Regulations state that the DEP may rescind approval of an air pollution control agency if the agency is not operating its program in conformity (with state regulations),” ACHD wrote. “An abdication of the department’s duty to regulate can result in a loss of its authority to regulate. You can read the entire brief here. But here’s how it concluded: Over the past year, the [ACHD] and U.S. Steel engaged in productive discussions relating to the proposed amendments to the Coke Ovens and Coke Oven Gas regulations. While the [ACHD] recognizes the importance of complying with the provisions of the (settlement agreement and order), the [ACHD] cannot ignore the statutory requirements under the Pennsylvania Air Pollution Control Act (which) prohibits the [ACHD]from adopting regulations which are less stringent than the Pennsylvania Air Resources regulations. The requirements under the APCA takes precedence over the contractual provisions under the SOA. Therefore, it is the [ACHD’s] Position that the proposed Coke Ovens and Coke Oven Gas regulations are consistent with Pennsylvania law and regulations and that they do not violate the enforceable provisions of the SOA. U.S. Steel has until Friday to file a response. GASP has been following this matter closely, will continue to monitor it, and report back to you what we find out.

Members of Allegheny County’s Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved making more than $578,000 from the Clean Air Fund available to the Health Department to cover normal operating expenditures in 2021. Why that amount? Allegheny County’s air pollution regulations allow the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) to use 5 percent of the Clean Air Fund balance annually to “fund the normal operating costs of the County’s Air Quality Program.” ACHD air quality staff provided a breakdown of how the department spent that 5 percent allocation in 2020, as well as a general breakdown of how it plans to utilize the money this year. Of that $578,684, ACHD in 2021 plans to spend up to: $200,000 on legal support $198,750 on what was described as services/interns $60,000 on lab services and $45,484 on supplies Here were two slides presented at the meeting: Per county regulations, this request still must be approved by the Board of Health before any money is transferred out of the Clean Air Fund. ACHD air quality staff, however, was unable to provide any further details about those planned expenditures when pressed by committee members for more information. “GASP is hopeful that the Allegheny County Health Department will provide a more detailed explanation of those expected costs at an upcoming meeting,” GASP Executive Director Patrick Campbell said. “When it comes to Clean Air Fund expenditures, transparency is imperative.” While there was no mention of it at Tuesday’s meeting, we are also hopeful that a key vacancy on the Air Advisory Committee created by the resignation of our former executive director Rachel Filippini will soon be filled by a familiar face: GASP senior staff attorney John Baillie. GASP has written and called Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald – who is responsible for making nominations to county boards – to request he nominate John to the Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee ASAP. Because that correspondence went unacknowledged, we encouraged residents to join us in sending Fitzgerald the message: Please ensure GASP continues to have a seat on the Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee by nominating John Baillie. “We can’t think of a better candidate to fill that vacancy and thank the more than 100 people who joined us so far in asking Mr. Fitzgerald to make that nomination,” Campbell said. “It’s unfortunate that the county executive continues to ignore not only GASP’s request but the will of so many of his constituents.” Editor’s Note: The submission period has ended. Thank you to everyone who emailed Rich Fitzgerald.

If you follow our local air quality issues, then you likely already know the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) is our local air quality regulator and operates a network of air quality monitors. What you might not know? Every year, ACHD is required to publish an air quality network monitoring plan providing a detailed description of how and where air pollution is monitored throughout the county. These annual reports are mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and provide information such as the specific location of each monitoring station, monitoring methods, monitoring objectives, frequency of sampling, pollutants measured, and any planned changes to the network. Right now, ACHD is seeking public comment on its 2025 Air Quality Network Monitoring Plan through 4:30 p.m. June. 14, so GASP wanted to give you all a breakdown of what’s new and notable in the report and how - and why - you should consider speaking out. Where, What, When, and Why Does ACHD Monitor? ACHD operates nine monitoring sites to meet the core objectives for all monitoring networks across the country. Those objections include: Provide air pollution data to the general public in a timely manner; Support compliance with ambient air quality standards and emissions strategy development; and Support for air pollution research studies. The complexity of the sites and the pollutants they measure vary by the sites’ objectives, with a site in Glassport monitoring a single pollutant – PM10 – and ACHD’s primary site in the City of Pittsburgh monitoring dozens of pollutants. The monitoring site locations are established to meet certain objectives. For example, there is a near-road site along the Parkway East set up expressly to monitor pollutants from mobile sources and other sites that have changed over time to detect the highest levels or background levels of certain pollutants. Many sites now monitor continuously as technology and internet connectivity have advanced, but not all pollutants can be monitored in real-time. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (Que David Bowie) In the 71-page plan, ACHD detailed monitoring additions since the publication of its 2024 Air Quality Network Monitoring Plan. They include… Change 1: Lawrenceville Monitoring Station Will Be on the Move Yes, the Air Quality Program has relocated the Lawrenceville monitor from the Clack Health Center Complex to the Chateau neighborhood of the North Side as of November 2023 but it will need to be relocated. Here’s what’s going on: In the 2023 Annual Monitoring Network Plan, ACHD proposed to move all the current monitoring operations at the Lawrenceville site to 836 Fulton Street in the Chateau neighborhood bordering Manchester - a move that received EPA Region 3 approval. However, because of potential interferences that could occur with the construction and operation of a new gas fueling station, ACHD is actively looking for alternative sites that could meet federal siting criteria to house the air monitoring operations currently at Lawrenceville. Here’s what the air quality program said in the plan: “Due to the sensitivity of the air quality instruments the expected air emissions from the gas fueling station, while small in quantity, could disproportionately affect the measurement of trace quantities of pollutants those instruments were designed to detect,” the Air Quality Program wrote. ACHD continued: “In other words, the proximity of the gas station to the instruments could show readings that are not representative of area-wide pollutant concentrations – particularly for volatile organic compounds and ozone precursors.” The plan notes that ACHD is actively assessing other properties that could house the current Lawrenceville monitoring station while meeting rigorous federal siting criteria for monitoring sites. Change 2: PM2.5, PM10 and PMCOARSE Monitoring Methods All continuous PM2.5 monitors in the ACHD monitoring network now use either what’s known as a Teledyne T640 (PM2.5) or T640X (PM2.5, PM10, and PMCOARSE) instrument. ACHD elected to change to the new data alignment algorithm provided and recommended by the manufacturer on all the T640 and T640X instruments in use in the air monitoring network. And the EPA now allows for the data alignment algorithm to be used (under another new method code) retroactively for PM2.5 data submitted to AQS before the approved release of the algorithm in the summer of 2023. ACHD said this change has “lessened some of the bias that was seen in historical Teledyne PM2.5 FEM data compared to the PM2.5 FRM data.” Change 3: The Addition of Continuous PM2.5 Monitors at South Fayette and Harrison ACHD plans to proceed with the installation of continuous PM2.5 FEM monitors at all remaining PM2.5 SLAMS sites that do not currently have continuous PM2.5 coverage. The Department is awaiting the arrival of new environmental shelters to house the units. The PM2.5 FEM monitors will be candidates for designation as either a primary or collocated SLAMS PM2.5 monitor in the network. Change 4: The Addition of a Hydrogen Sulfide Monitoring at Clairton Site ACHD plans to expand continuous hydrogen sulfide (H2S) surveillance by adding an H2S analyzer at the Clairton monitoring site after necessary upgrades and repairs are made to the station – including a new environmental shelter. Change 5: The Addition of Wind Speed & Direction Sensors at Avalon and Clairton Sites ACHD will install a meteorology tower at the new Avalon site to provide wind speed and wind direction data for the area. A similar meteorology installation will occur at the Clairton site. Change 6: Moving Sulfur Dioxide Monitoring from South Fayette to Clairton Site ACHD wants to relocate SO2 monitoring that was discontinued at the South Fayette site to the Clairton site after necessary upgrades and repairs are made to the station (the originally proposed design would not meet EPA siting criteria and a special enclosure must be modified and craned up to the roof of the site). GASP's Thoughts on This Year's Plan GASP has mostly positive things to say about ACHD’s 2025 Air Network Monitoring Plan. “We are especially supportive of the department expanding hydrogen sulfide monitoring in the Mon Valley,” GASP Executive Director Patrick Campbell said. “More monitoring means more data and more data will hopefully lead to actionable insights and improved air quality for our frontline friends.” For the uninitiated: Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a toxic gas with a rotten-egg odor that occurs both naturally (from sources such as swamps, manure pits, and oil, gas, and water wells) and as a result of industrial activity (including, most notably for our region, coke making). For years, residents in the Mon Valley and beyond have been subject to H2S concentrations high enough to exceed state limits and cause irritation to the eyes, nose, or throat and that have been linked to headaches, poor memory, tiredness, and balance problems according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Low concentrations of H2S may also cause difficulty in breathing for some asthmatics. The culprit? According to two studies, it’s clear: U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works operations. However, despite these studies and enforcement actions related to H2S, the Mon Valley is still pummeled by days-long periods of stench and exceedances. As of the date this blog was published, there have already been 51 days so far this year on which H2S concentrations exceeded Pennsylvania’s 24-hour limit. We hope the additional monitoring will ultimately lead to even more effective enforcement action and, hopefully, improved air quality and quality of life for Allegheny County residents. GASP is also supportive of ACHD’s decision to move SO2 monitoring from South Fayette to the Clairton site. “That’s a much more logical location for that monitoring given how much steelmaking operations like we see at the Mon Valley Works drives sulfur dioxide emissions,” Campbell said. How and Why to Submit a Public Comment If you’d like to echo our sentiments above or raise other concerns about how air quality is monitored in Allegheny County, submitting a formal public comment is simple. Just email them to ACHD’s David D. Good at David.Good@alleghenycounty.us or mail them to: 301 39th Street, Building 7, Pittsburgh, PA 15201.

This just in, friends: The Allegheny County Economic Development (ACED) announced that it has opened the application portal for the first round of funding for the Mon Valley Public Health Fund. This fund is a result of the settlement of the with U.S. Steel for the 2018 Christmas Eve fire announced earlier this year. "This funding opportunity is an important step forward in improving public health and air quality in the Mon Valley,” ACED Director Lauren Connelly said. “We encourage eligible organizations to apply for these funds and submit their ideas for how to efficiently and effectively improve conditions in the Mon Valley." Here’s more from a news release issued Monday: Proposals must be exclusively designated to fund public health and welfare and/or air quality improvement projects that have a direct, tangible, positive impact on public health and welfare and/or air quality in the Mon Valley communities located near U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works, Edgar Thomson Plant, and Irvin Plant. Funds may not be used for advocacy or lobbying, and any entity that has ever been involved in litigation against U.S. Steel may not apply. Additionally, any project that employs or utilizes the services of an entity that has testified or a non-testifying expert against U.S. Steel is not eligible. To be eligible, applicants must be 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entities that are located in and serve the Mon Valley communities near the U.S. Steel facilities. These communities include Clairton, Glassport, Dravosburg, McKeesport, Port Vue, Liberty, Lincoln, West Mifflin, Braddock, North Braddock, East Pittsburgh, Duquesne, and North Versailles. Interested organizations can apply via ACED's application portal at https://funding.alleghenycounty.us/. Applicants should select the "Mon Valley Public Health & Welfare Fund" application. The application for this round of funding will be open from June 3, 2024, through July 5, 2024. ACED Deputy Director Simone McMeans said, "We are here to support applicants throughout the process. We encourage anyone with questions to reach out to ACED for assistance." For technical assistance with the application portal, email askACED@AlleghenyCounty.US. For all other inquiries, please contact us at 412-350-1000. GASP thanks ACED for the transparency and proactive public communications.