The Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP) joined environmental groups and droves of residents Friday to send a clear message to the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) that it needs to take action to strengthen coke oven regulations and take steps to hold U.S. Steel and other polluters accountable when industrial emissions and weather events such as inversions combine, tanking local air quality. About 100 people attended the rally held at the Pittsburgh City-County Building just before the Allegheny County Board of Health was slated to meet. The demonstration came in the wake of an eight-day stretch of terrible air quality. GASP Executive Director Rachel Filippini spoke at the rally and then again at the board of health meeting. Here are her remarks: Good afternoon, my name is Rachel Filippini and I’m the executive director of the Group Against Smog and Pollution.  Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Late last year the County was marred by eight days of unrelenting air pollution. Once again, county residents were forced to endure air pollution serious enough to land the Liberty-Clairton area at the top of the nation’s list of cities with the worst air quality. ACHD’s initial statement on the issue blamed the weather and merely reassured the public that U.S. Steel’s facilities were operating within permit limits. Even under normal operations, however, US Steel is permitted to literally emit tons of pollution each year. So, to be clear, this was – and is – in no way reassuring. We know prolonged inversions prevent air pollution from dissipating, but they certainly don’t create pollution. ACHD cannot control the weather – or use it as a pollution-control tool – but ACHD can control emissions.Ultimately, what we need is for ACHD to act quickly to establish a comprehensive plan to address what is essentially a two-fold problem. First, the department must put a procedure in place to protect public health when weather conditions combine with industrial air pollution to tank local air quality, as it did over the Christmas holiday.And in fact, ACHD announced such a plan last week, stating it would explore new regulations that would impose corrective action requirements on industry during short-term pollution events. GASP welcomed the news that ACHD wants to take steps to address this problem, but we were troubled that ACHD asserted that its “current regulations do not provide options to address this issue.” ACHD has had an entire chapter on “Air Pollution Episodes” on the books for many years. Those regulations “provide (ACHD) with the authority to decrease the severity and duration of air pollution episodes by requiring staged reduction in the emissions of air contaminants.” GASP believes ACHD was limited in its response to the most recent air pollution episode not because of a lack of regulations, but because ACHD failed to update most of these regulations over the last 25 years. The current criteria for defining an air pollution episode doesn’t even list an action level for PM2.5. Given the history of pollution episodes locally and ACHD’s acknowledgement that climate change will magnify the problem, ACHD must provide the public with a clear plan of action and a timeline addressing when the Air Quality Program will start working on this issue.The second action necessary is that ACHD must revise and strengthen the County’s coke-oven regulations. This is necessary to combat fugitive emissions of air pollutants like hydrogen sulfide every day. Air pollution near the Clairton Coke facility is not just a weather-driven anomaly; it is a year-round burden on local residents. The midnight-to-midnight, 24-hour average concentration of hydrogen sulfide at ACHD’s Liberty monitor mathematically exceeded the state air quality standard 46 times in 2019. Although exceedances occurred in clusters near the February and December inversion events last year, at least one such exceedance occurred in all 12 months of 2019. Clearly, we have both an acute and chronic air pollution problem that needs to be addressed. We all deserve clean air and it’s ultimately ACHD’s responsibility to take the regulatory actions necessary to ensure we have it.  Thank you. Here are links to associated media coverage of today’s events: Allegheny County Residents Demand Action on Air Pollution, published by Public News Service Clairton Residents, Activists Protest Air Pollution, published by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Allegheny County Residents Rally for Better Clean Air Enforcement, published by the Tribune-Review Photos: Clean Air Rally Calls for Change, published by Pittsburgh Current Dozens Gather Downtown to Protest Poor Air Quality in Allegheny County, published by CityPaper Environmental Groups Gather At City-County Building for Air Quality Rally, published by KDKA.com Protesters Gather in Pittsburgh Over Clairton Works Pollution, published by WPXI.com Amid Rally for Air Quality Action, U.S. Steel Commits to Work with Health Department, published by Pittsburgh Business Times The Glimpse, Published by PublicSource Residents Press Allegheny County to Do More for Air Quality, published by WESA #pittsburghairpollution #cokeovenregulations #cleanairrally #airpollution #USSteel #ClairtonCoke #RachelFilippini #rally #emissions #AlleghenyCountyHealthDepartment #ACHD #ClairtonCokeWorks #airquality

Further, Eastman was the subject of a federal enforcement action in 2011; the order that resolved that action required Eastman to comply with a comprehensive testing and permitting process that has been ongoing for more than eight years. On Oct. 11, 2019, GASP formally appealed an installation permit issued by ACHD for the Water White Poly Process Unit at Eastman’s plant. The installation permit purportedly was to comply with the court order that resolved the 2011 enforcement action and to authorize changes to, and increased production by, the processing unit. GASP appealed the installation permit because it did not include applicable requirements imposed by Subpart FFFF of the National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants, which applies to “Miscellaneous Organic Chemical Manufacturing” (“Subpart FFFF”). Both the Clean Air Act and ACHD’s own regulations require sources to comply with all applicable National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants. Indeed, ACHD omitted the applicable requirements from Eastman’s installation permit despite acknowledgments by both ACHD and Eastman that the processing unit was in fact subject to those requirements. We are happy to report that as a result of our appeal, ACHD has revised the installation permit for the Water White Poly Process Unit so that it expressly requires Eastman to operate that unit in compliance with all applicable provisions of Subpart FFFF.  Obviously, this should prevent Eastman from attempting any argument that those provisions do not apply to it because they were omitted from its permit. -John Baillie, GASP Staff Attorney #WaterWhitePolyProcessUnit #NationalEmissionStandardsforHazardousAirPollutants #JohnBaillie #installationpermit #EastmanChemical

The first review of GASP’s Clean Air Kits is in, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. Here’s what Grounded Strategies Project Manager for Youth Engagement Ashley Seiler said after borrowing one of our kits – which include fun, hands-on activities (one involves pig lungs) that help educate kids about issues related to air quality and health: Omg! I used the gasp air quality kit tonight and the kids went wild. Does anyone else have it requested? I was going to see if I could borrow it again. It is so fun. Their faces with the pig lung are priceless. I love teaching the lesson. Keep me posted. The picture Ms. Sieler sent along is worth a million words. Editor’s Note: Teachers in schools across Allegheny County may borrow one, two, or all three of the kits completely free of charge. GASP will also provide free delivery. In addition to the instructional materials included as part of the kits, a member of GASP’s education staff will conduct an Air Quality 101 presentation. Teachers and administrators are encouraged to email us at education@gasp-pgh.org to find out more information or to request one of more of the kits. #piglungs #CleanAirKits #AshleySeiler #GroundedPittsburgh #airquality

The EPA used New Year’s Eve as an odd (and perhaps intentional) date to publish four reports by its Chartered Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), three of which were strongly critical of the administration’s grasp on established science. You can read more about those reports in a story by the Washington Post here and another in the New York Times here – and we recommend (and hope) that you do. We also hope that you read the draft SAB letters (you can check them out online here). When you’re done, we encourage you to write your elected officials, your friends, your boss, and anyone else you can think of to let them know what you think. GASP’s view is that these documents paint an appalling picture of how little regard the current EPA has for science. Even worse, we believe they suggest EPA is more than willing to manipulate science for political purposes. The SAB letter concerning the administration’s attempt to undo vehicle fuel-efficiency standards, for example, pointed out an alarming “weakness” in the EPA’s modeling that caused “implausible results”: The EPA somehow concluded that “an increase in vehicle prices due to regulation will cause the [national vehicle] fleet to grow substantially when it would usually be expected to shrink.” In other words, the EPA tried to suggest that if regulations increased the cost of cars, consumers would buy more of them. The horror of that “miscalculation” should set in when you realize the EPA used this implausible increased number of total vehicles on the road to “prove” the fuel efficiency standards would not reduce emissions. Even if you cannot fully examine the SAB letters and news coverage of EPA’s sinister science, please consider listening in on EPA’s defense of it and share your experience with others. The EPA and SAB will be holding public teleconferences on Jan. 17, 21, 22, and 24 to discuss these reports. Per the SAB agenda, one of the four letters will be addressed each of the four days. Notice of these teleconferences was also published on New Year’s Eve but, again, you will find actual call-in information conspicuously missing from the notice itself. To get call-in details, you need to: Go to the SAB website here. Then, on the right-hand side of the page, you will see links for the four teleconference days under a heading titled “Upcoming and Recent Meetings.” If you click on any of the above-mentioned dates, you’ll be taken to a webpage for that day’s “public meeting” information. On that page, if you click on the green “Call-in Information” button, you should get a pop-up that asks you for an email address and promises that a call-in number and access code will be sent to that email address “within minutes.” The call-in information might be the same for all four teleconferences but if you are interested in listening in all four days, you should probably go through this process for all four dates. We recognize this is a bit outside the scope of GASP’s usual coverage of local air issues but the EPA’s attack on science is alarming. Finally, we’d like to point out GASP takes great pride in avoiding unfounded accusations, but here we felt comfortable suggesting EPA’s choice to publish the reports on a notoriously lax news day was “perhaps intentional” because all four draft reports are dated months earlier – Oct. 16, 2019, per the document titles. In addition, the PDF metadata confirm all four files were created on Oct. 16, 2019. GASP strongly believes that this suggests EPA staff had copies of these letters for more than 10 weeks before they were posted publicly. Posting them on New Year’s Eve seemed like a bit too much of a “coincidence” for us to stomach. #EPA #emissions #SAB

An Allegheny County Health Department spokesman on Tuesday confirmed that ACHD is now posting to its website enforcement orders from its Air Quality Program. The move was first announced by ACHD Deputy Director of Environmental Health Jim Kelly at the Jan. 10 Board of Health meeting. Prior to the documents being posted publicly, residents needed to submit a formal Right to Know request to obtain them. GASP appreciates the additional transparency regarding these Air Quality Program-related documents, which can be accessed here. #ACHD #airquality #AirQualityProgram #AlleghenyCountyHealthDepartment

A Natrona-based slag processor will pay a more than $107,000 civil penalty and construct a new building to enclose processing thanks to a consent order and agreement with the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD). The agreement between the department, Harsco Corporation, and ATI Flat Rolled Products was finalized Jan. 7 and addresses ongoing complaints from residents of nearby Opal Court who said that fugitive dust from the slag processing facility could be found on their cars and homes. The agreement was first announced by ACHD Deputy of Environmental Health Jim Kelly at the Jan. 10 Board of Health meeting, where he called the enclosed processing requirement “a first” for Allegheny County. About Harsco’s Ongoing Fugitive Dust Issue The dust issue first came to light in March of 2017, when ACHD issued notice of violation letters to Harsco and ATI, the steel-making company for which Harsco processes slag. ATI also owns the property where Harsco’s facility is situated. Those NOVs came after inspectors noted dust on children’s toys, playground equipment, and cars in Opal Court on three separate occasions in February of 2017, ultimately determining the company was in violations of regulations regarding fugitive emissions. Harsco in June of 2017 submitted an action plan to address the violations, committing to operational changes and enhanced training designed to mitigate those dust issues. Despite implementing that compliance plan, ACHD noted that residential complaints about dust deposits continued to pour in: Between May 15, 2017 and May 22, 2018, inspectors noted 13 days on which deposits of particulate matter from Harsco were discovered nearby—spurring the health department to issue another administrative order against the company May 29, 2018. That order required the company to submit and implement a compliance plan that would eliminate all fallout of particulate matter. Harsco’s fix? The installation of a spray header system, which became fully operational on Aug. 6, 2018. The problem? ACHD continued to receive complaints about fugitive dust from nearby residents. A subsequent investigation determined that particulate matter deposits were noted in the community on 20 days between July 11, 2018 and Dec. 23, 2019. As a result, ACHD determined that the plan was not adequate—which led to this latest agreement. Harsco Agrees to Take Corrective Action In addition to the $107,020 civil penalty and the construction of a new building to enclose slag operations, Harsco also agreed to change the way it processes that slag. The company agreed to change its current water-quenching process to an air-cooled process. Harsco and ACHD also agreed to stipulated penalties and a number of deadlines related to requirements spelled out in the order. According to the consent order, the company is required to: Submit an installation permit for the new air-cooled process to ACHD within 90 days of the agreement’s effective date. Commence slag processing in the new building within 15 months of the agreement’s effective date or 60 days from the issuance of the installation permit. Cease operations of the current water-quenching process no later than 90 days from the commencement of in-building slag processing “to allow shakedown of the new air-cooled slag process.” Continue operating and maintaining emissions control equipment at the current slag facility “with good air pollution control practices and pursuant to the compliance plan submitted to ACHD on June 28, 2018.” The History Between GASP & Harsco—and Our Reaction to the Recent Order In October 2017, GASP sent Harsco a notice of intent to sue under the Clean Air Act based on Harsco’s failure to have submitted an application for a Title V Operating Permit to ACHD. Harsco submitted such an application in January 2018. ACHD’s action on that application has been delayed pending the enforcement activity that culminated in this most recent order. “After many failed attempts by Harsco to control emissions of dust from its operations, ACHD has taken strong action by requiring that Harsco enclose those operations in a building,” said John Baillie, GASP’s senior attorney.  “We hope that these new measures will provide Harsco’s neighbors with relief from the dust emissions that have plagued their neighborhood for so many years.” Editor’s Note: You can read the entire order here. #TitleV #ATI #JohnBaillie #Harsco #emissions #AlleghenyCountyHealthDepartment #ACHD #airquality

Mark your calendars, because we want to formally invite you to a discussion about the Green New Deal hosted by Sunrise Pittsburgh slated for this Sunday, Jan. 26. GASP Executive Director Rachel Filippini will be among those speaking at the event, which is the second in a series and that will include discussion of climate change and pollution in our region. Other presenters will include Zachary Barber of Penn Environment and Jay Ting Walker of Clean Air Council. Attendees can expect discussion about policy, as well as the systemic changes needed to support a healthy environment and atmosphere—and to repair the harm done to front-line communities. Organizers suggest participants to arrive at about 4:30 p.m. for refreshments. The presentations begin at 5 p.m. (they also suggest bringing your own plate, silverware, and cup). The discussion will be held at the Human Service Building downtown. There is plenty of free parking in the back of the building. Please note that the only entrance is off Fort Pitt Boulevard. When you arrive at the gate at that entrance, press the intercom and tell security that you are there for the Green New Deal discussion. If security doesn’t answer, attendees are asked to call 412-518-7378. #ClimateChange #RachelFilippini

This week, GASP Senior Attorney John Baillie submitted comments on pending RACT (Reasonably Available Control Technology) and Title V operating permits for two industrial operators: PPG Industries, Inc. in Springdale, and the Bellefield Boiler Plant in Oakland. By way of background, ACHD’s regulations define “Reasonably Available Control Technology” to mean “any pollution control equipment, process modifications, operating and maintenance standards, or other apparatus or techniques which may reduce emissions and which (ACHD) determines is available for use by the source.” In considering the necessity for obtaining those emission reductions, ACHD looks at the “social and economic impact of such reductions, and the availability of alternative means of providing for the attainment and maintenance of (health-based air quality standards).” For those who aren’t familiar: A Title V permit is required for major, stationary sources of air pollution that have the potential to emit at least 100 tons per year of any air pollutant, 10 tons per year of any single hazardous air pollutant, or 25 tons per year of any combination of hazardous air pollutants. You can read our comments on the PPG permits here. You can read our comments on the Bellefield Boiler Plant here. #TitleV #installationpermit #AlleghenyCountyHealthDepartment #ACHD #airquality

Sometimes what you don’t know can hurt you. Such is the case with radon exposure. You can’t see it, taste it or smell it, but it could be present at dangerous levels in your home. Radon should be on the radar of every Pennsylvanian, in particular. Why? Exposure to radon is the leading cause of lung cancer in the state. It is also the leading cause of lung cancer deaths among nonsmokers in the United States – causing more than 21,000 deaths nationwide. And it’s worse in the Keystone State: 40 percent of Pennsylvania homes have radon levels above the Environmental Protection Agency’s action guideline of 4 picocuries per liter. Let us back up for a minute to explain that radon occurs naturally during the breakdown of uranium in the ground and enters homes through cracks in the foundation or other openings. Pennsylvania’s geology makes some locations throughout the state hotbeds for radon, which puts residents at risk. The good news? Determining whether you have a radon problem is simple and relatively inexpensive. And since January is Radon Action Month, we figured today is as good as any to talk about how. While folks can hire a state-certified company to test radon levels, they can also do it themselves: Test canisters can be purchased at most hardware or home improvement stores for about $25. Those who go the DIY route should conduct the test in the basement, where radon levels are generally highest. For those who are unfamiliar with radon testing: You simply open the canister and set it in the basement, let it sit open for a few days, and then close it up and mail it to the laboratory listed on the label. Pro tip: Winter is the best time to test because doors and windows are closed, which provides more accurate results. If the results indicate a radon level of more than 4 picocuries per liter of air (the action level established by the EPA), it’s recommended that you implement a radon-reduction system. By way of background, these systems generally involve the installation of a pipe and exhaust fan to vent the gas outdoors. While this remediation could be costly, experts say that mitigating a radon leak may make the future sale of your home a bit easier. But radon exposure isn’t just an issue in homes. According to a nationwide survey, one out of five schools has at least one classroom with high, short-term radon levels. While the EPA recommends all schools nationwide be tested for radon, to date, only about 20 percent of schools have done so. This issue prompted 11 states to implement laws regarding radon exposure in schools. Pennsylvania, however, is not among them. To find out more about radon in schools (and what you can do to spur action at your child’s school), check out this great resource from our friends at Women for a Healthy Environment. Want to learn more? DEP has posted radon tips on Facebook and Twitter and is airing a public service announcement on TV and radio throughout the month – check them out. #radon

Air quality and…puppets? Yes and yes! GASP was proud to be among the guests this past Friday at Glitter Box Theater on Melwood Avenue for the second episode of Pittsburgh Puppet Radio—one that centered on the subject of air quality in our region. The show featured puppets and orchestration by Dave English, music by Middle Children, and participation from some of the most fascinating denizens of this the steeliest of cities. As promised, there was weird experimental music, dancing puppets, local politicians, scientists, artists, maniacs, party tricks, and other fun stuff. Our executive director, Rachel Filippini, said she had a blast at being interviewed by host (and puppet) Mr. Funfangles. “This was unlike any other air quality event I’ve been a part of,” she said. “It was such a blast.” You can learn more about Pittsburgh Puppet Radion on its Facebook page. #airquality #PittsburghPuppetRadio #RachelFilippini