Zachary Barber
PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center
[Pittsburgh, PA]– A new study by PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group documents how decades of poor enforcement of air quality rules by the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) enabled industrial facilities to pollute the region’s air. The report, entitled Cutting Through the Smoke, found that ACHD has enabled pollution through slow permitting and weak enforcement. The report, coming on the heels of the departure of ACHD’s Director, makes recommendations for how the new Director can improve enforcement techniques and in turn better protect residents from dangerous air pollution.
“When ACHD finds a health problem at a restaurant, it shuts the restaurant down. Yet for decades, ACHD allowed polluters to go right on harming our health,” said Zachary Barber, Field Organizer with PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center. “There are simple, time-tested enforcement practices used across the country that, if implemented in Allegheny County, could go a long way towards reining in dangerous pollution.”
Key findings included:
“In this region, we discuss the importance of sustainability a LOT – it’s time for all officials to do their part in reducing pollution and saving our livelihood,” said Mayor Marita Garrett of Wilkinsburg. “As I will always say, an individual’s zip code should never be a predictor of one’s health outcome. Air pollution, our environment is tied into equity and we continue to see the communities of lower socioeconomic status hit the hardest. At the very minimum, we all deserve quality of life.”
Based on these findings, the report recommends that ACHD implement the following best practices for enforcement of clean air laws:
“In the past, ACHD officials have been too quick to settle with repeat industrial polluters, and the fines issued don’t appear to deter future—and in some instances, ongoing—violations,” said Rachel Filippini, executive director of the Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP). “If we ever hope to move off the ‘worst air quality lists’ that our county is so used to being featured on, then we must ensure industry gets the message that polluting is both financially and politically untenable here. We hope the incoming director of the Allegheny County Health Department takes an aggressive approach to enforcement; one that tells potential polluters, ‘Not on my watch.’”
The report comes as Allegheny County is conducting its search for a new ACHD Director. The previous director, Dr. Karen Hacker, left at the end of July for a position with the Centers for Disease Control. The Board of Health is overseeing a search for her replacement.
“We hope that the next director of the Allegheny County Health Department will commit to the enforcement road map laid out in our report,” said Barber.
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The PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center is a statewide environmental non-profit group dedicated to protecting our water, air and open spaces. We investigate problems, craft solutions, educate the public and decision-makers, and help the public make their voices heard in local, state and national debates over the quality of our environment and our lives. For more information about this or our other projects, visit www.PennEnvironment.org/Center.