GASP has teamed up with Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC to bring you a FREE, fun-filled, and educational event called Kid’s Healthy Lungs Boot Camp on Saturday, July 7th from 1 p.m. to 4pm. Bring your kids (ages 6-11 most appropriate) out for activities, games, and crafts to learn about their health. Kids will learn about proper nutrition, exercise, air pollution, smoking, asthma and allergies. Trainers from Urban Active will engage participants in a fun exercise. There will be lots of healthy snacks and prizes, and each child will go home with a packet of educational and fun materials. Don’t miss this great event! Saturday, July 7, 2012 1-4pm Location: Bakery Square, 6425 Penn Ave., Pittsburgh, 15206 This event is FREE but registration is requested. Call 412-692-8112 to register. Parent or guardian must accompany child.

GASP recently took the group of SCA Green Cities Fellows that are working in Pittsburgh this year on a tour of the Carrie Furnace iron-making site in Rankin. The tour was led by Ron B., a very knowledgeable guide from Rivers of Steel Heritage Corp. We learned about the process of iron making (coke + limestone + iron ore) as well as a hundred fascinating tidbits that made the mill come to life for us–everything from explaining how “old-time” workers wore only leathers and wet burlap to protect themselves from the heat and splashing molten iron coming from the furnaces to showing us where film crews for “Out of the Furnace” affixed foam “concrete” to a wall for a fight scene filmed there. Do this tour as soon as you can, and ask for Ron to be your guide. Tell ’em GASP sent you. Walking between the machinery, feeling pretty small. We didn’t get to go everywhere that we wanted to…. Looking up and feeling even tinier. At the foot of the furnace, where the molten iron poured out. Got to keep everything written down. Standing where entire rail cars of raw materials were lifted and dumped. Oh yeah, don’t forget the giant deer head sculpture made w/ on-site materials.

This Wednesday, GASP and Clean Air Council will provide information about air quality issues and health impacts associated with natural gas development. We’ll discuss the proposed expansion of the MarkWest Welling Compressor Station, in Buffalo Township (Washington County), and provide details on how the public can comment on this station. This facility expansion would result in a station with 11 compressor engines, a dehydrator/reboiler, three condensate tanks, two other storage tanks, and other various smaller engines and pieces of equipment. As planned, this facility would emit 49.2 tons per year (TPY) of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), 60.81 TPY of Nitrogen Oxides (NOx), and 89,422 TPY of Carbon Dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Some of these emissions projections are just under limits that would trigger more stringent air pollution control requirements. This is your chance to tell the state what you think about this compressor station expansion, so please attend, and bring all of your questions for our experts.  Contact Lauren for more information. Buffalo Township Municipal Building, Washington County 7 p.m. on Wednesday, June 20.

Hosted on May 24 at the beautiful Phipps Conservatory, the "Clean Energy Matters" conference, organized by PennFuture, showcased innovative alternative energy solutions and emphasized the importance of integrating these energy solutions into our cities. Keynote speaker Andrea Luecke, Executive Director at The Solar Foundation, gave an engaging presentation on the feasibility and attractiveness of solar power, asserting that “Solar power is the most abundant and most available energy resource on our planet.” Luecke and other analysts foresee the United States leading the world in solar power consumption as soon as 2014.  However, the underlying objective of the event was not to simply push solar–it was to bring to light new innovative ways that our state and our nation can move forward in sustainably powering our way of life. For example, combining renewable energy such as solar, wind, or geothermal-generated power into buildings, while also retrofitting those buildings to be more energy-efficient, can be a way to accelerate savings and lower energy consumption. Altogether, keeping renewable energy on the government agenda is paramount to enacting creative solutions to breaking our nation’s fossil fuel dependency. With the attainment of energy independence, a strong economy grown with green jobs, and cleaner air all on the horizon, the time is now to make clean energy matter. You can immediately make an impact by switching your electricity provider–learn more about buying cleaner energy in Pennsylvania by visiting here, here, and here. The path to a sustainable Pittsburgh starts with you. Become a member of GASP to stay up to date and learn how you can become more involved in these issues. Written by Matt Ferrer, GSPIA Masters Candidate and GASP Intern

On May 18, the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) Air Quality Program issued a permit to Superior Appalachian Pipeline (SAP) to construct a natural gas compressor station in Frazer Township. This station will gather, process, compress, and transfer natural gas from Marcellus wells in that area and will be the first Marcellus compressor station in Allegheny County.  The site will include five compressor engines, three dehydrators, and two wastewater storage tanks.  The full permit can be accessed here. GASP has closely watched the development of this station. We submitted comments to ACHD and held a public meeting to provide more information about the facility and advice on how to craft and submit comments. We also asked ACHD to hold a public hearing and extend the comment period. ACHD granted these requests and, on March 27th, heard testimony from over two dozen citizens. See our web page dedicated to this station here. The public outcry resulted in significant improvements to the final permit, which includes numerous changes to better protect human and environmental health. The entire Comment Response document can be found here. For instance, GASP was aware of similar facilities that better control their volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and formaldehyde emissions and demanded the same controls be applied here. As a result, VOC and formaldehyde emissions will be reduced by an additional 44% and 58% respectively. SAP conducted ambient air quality modeling to ensure that their emissions would not endanger human health and raised compressor engine stack heights to further reduce exposure. Other positive results have to do with the way emissions from these sources are counted.  Our comments led to the inclusion of additional VOC emissions that were previously overlooked. ACHD took a closer look at the facilities to be connected to the proposed compressor station, a necessary step to determine if the facilities should be permitted as a single source of air pollution. ACHD is also requiring an analysis of produced water every six months, to verify the emissions estimates of VOCs from that source. Should the compressor station receive “wet gas,” VOC emissions would rise. In all, ACHD conducted a more thorough review of potential emissions, has a more accurate grasp of the facility’s potential effect on human and environmental health, and required more emissions reductions in some areas than had been previously accepted. Perhaps most importantly, we’ve set a strong precedent, ensuring any future compressor stations proposed in Allegheny County are subject to rigorous review. While the final permit is much improved, this facility is just one part of a much bigger problem. Though this station is legally defined as a “minor source” of air pollution, it still has the potential to emit about 35 tons of nitrogen oxides and 13.5 tons of VOCs each year. Both of these pollutants are ozone precursors, and our region already struggles to meet federal health-based standards for ozone. While this facility may be deemed a “minor” source of air pollution when considered in isolation, this is just one of hundreds of other compressor stations and thousands of well sites constructed in the Marcellus in the past several years. The combined air quality impact of these sources is anything but minor. The pollutants added to our air from this and other Marcellus sources will make reducing our ozone level that much harder. That’s why GASP will continue its efforts to get regulators to see the big picture and realize that these minor air pollution sources add up to a major air quality problem. (For example, read GASP’s comments to PA DEP regarding the agency’s “general permit 5″—an expedited compressor station permit that would eliminate the very opportunity for public comment which proved so effective during the Frazier compressor permitting process.) Thanks to all who commented on this permit and helped improve it. We have a long way to go before the environmental challenges posed by natural gas development are adequately addressed. But your comments helped make this permit a step in the right direction.

The American Lung Association’s “State of the Air 2012” report shows improvement in air quality, but underscores the need for more progress. The good news? When it comes to air quality, the Pittsburgh region earned its best rank ever recorded for daily (short-term) particle pollution, moving into 6th place on the nation’s worst 25 list for this pollutant from third-place last year. The bad news is that we still rank among the 25 most polluted cities for ozone, and daily and year-round particle pollution.  Our ranking for year-round particle pollution worsened from 7seventh to sixth place and for ground-level ozone worsened to 20th from 24th place. While air quality overall has improved, the ranking for these two pollutants has gotten worse because we didn’t make as much progress in reducing them as other metro others have. Read more about the local environmental groups’ reaction to the air quality report here. What can be done to help address the ozone and PM2.5 air pollution problem locally: Pennsylvania and Allegheny County Health Department should develop air pollution regulations to control emissions from natural gas drilling. Allegheny County and local institutions should implement clean construction policies to limit diesel emissions generated through construction activity. Fleet owners should not idle their diesel vehicle and any unnecessary idling should be reported to the Allegheny County Health Department or PA DEP. Join GASP to learn more about how you can advocate for improved air quality!

April’s first-Friday arts crawl on Penn Avenue, Unblurred, was full of cartoons for this iteration of the event’s ever-changing theme. For this occasion, GASP dug up historic film footage and drawings from its archives and opened its doors after hours, inviting the wandering multitude of curious sidewalk crawlers to investigate GASP’s new headquarters and old influences. Several reels of 16mm film showed GASP’s original mascot, “Dirty Gertie the Poor Polluted Birdie,” brought to two-dimensional life and in the midst of various adventures, such as flying high over Pittsburgh…only to be consumed by the clouds of smoke overhead. Another reel, shot in the early 1970s, gathered eyewitness reports from local citizens on the state of air quality, accompanied by interviews of prominent local medical doctors, to produce a hard-hitting documentary titled “Don’t Hold Your Breath.” The walls of the foyer were hung with hand-drawn incarnations of Dirty Gertie, from the very first sketches to the mock-ups for a bumper sticker. Those who shuffled in to admire these works and video projections did so while nibbling on Gertie-shaped cookies, hand-made from the original recipe found in a cook book authored by Jeannette Widom, an early GASP member. The cookies served as a throwback to a foundational period in GASP’s history – lovingly called “flour power” – in which GASP “fought air pollution with a rolling pin” and created a yearly tradition of selling cookies to raise money and awareness of air quality. Certainly, the hundreds of Pittsburghers who streamed through the foyer were awash in a dense plume of yesteryear, which is the only type of plume we appreciate going up through our city. Two attendees checking out some 70’s style (and learning about air pollution)

GASP will be holding an educational workshop about air pollution from Marcellus Shale natural gas development. GASP staff will provide an overview of how natural gas operations can potentially impact air quality and public health. They will also provide individuals with the skills and information they need in order to participate in decisions about natural gas development by providing tips on how to effectively comment on proposed air quality permits. The workshop will be held at the Cooper-Seigel Community Library in Fox Chapel on Wednesday, April 18 at 6:30pm. Admission is free and open to the public—come learn more about Marcellus Shale and air quality.  More info here or call/email Lauren at GASP.

For all current, dues-paying GASP members, it’s time to vote for Board Members. (Not sure if you’re current? Call or email jamin@gasp-pgh.org.) Read about our nominees here. Editor's Note: The voting period is now over. Thank you to all who cast ballots!

The Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) on Jan. 15 issued a demand for stipulated penalties in the amount of $4,500 to Harsco Corp. following residents’ complaints about dust on their cars that emanated from its Natrona-based slag processing operations. The demand indicated Harsco (which processes slag from ATI’s steel plant in Brackenridge) violated the county’s Air Pollution Control regulations three times between Oct. 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2020. According to ACHD, an investigation revealed that the dust observed on residents’ vehicles was consistent with slag fugitive emissions from Harsco. A previous investigation by the health department determined that the dust was primarily lime. Inhaling lime dust may lead to irritation of breathing passages, coughing, and sneezing. How did ACHD come up with the amount of the penalty? A Jan. 7, 2020 consent agreement between ACHD, ATI, and Harsco set a penalty of $1,500 per violation. Harsco had 30 days from the date of the demand to submit payment to ACHD. You can read more about the consent agreement – which required that the companies construct a building to enclose slag operations as well as pay a $107,000 civil penalty – on our blog. “Through a RTK request we were able to determine that the application for the enclosed slag operation has been received by the ACHD, ” GASP Executive Director Rachel Filippini said. “We look forward to the health department putting the draft installation permit out for public comment so that we can review.” This is the third quarter during which ACHD issued a demand for stipulated penalties against ATI and Harsco. The department issued a $6,000 demand on Aug. 20 for violations made between April 30 and June 30, 2020. Then on Oct. 20, the department demanded another $7,500 for similar violations. In a separate enforcement action, ACHD on July 30 assessed a $1,320 civil penalty against ATI for an opacity violation that occurred July 7, 2019, and was brought to light in a semi-annual report the company submitted to the department on Jan. 30, 2020. Editor’s Note: While the demand for stipulated penalties was issued Jan. 15, the document was not made available on the ACHD website until Tuesday, March 9.