Fine particles, taking up lodging in the lungs, can. Doug Shugarts is a 23-year veteran of broadcast news. AT this time the service industries were seeing significant growth. Air Quality Plunges Due To Wildfire Smoke | Weather.com This map shows you Updated: Jun. Courtesy of University of Pittsburgh Library System. Like every city Pittsburgh aspires to be the best. There are 27 major sources of air pollution in Allegheny County, reports the Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP) in a recent blog. Code red alerts indicate that. 6:00 AM. Group wants Allegheny County Health Department to talk more about air She has written for a variety of outlets in the U.S. and Asia, and is a frequent contributor to The Associated Press. You are always breathing particles, no matter how tightly your windows might be sealed. Ozone pollution can cause many health issues, including chest pain, throat irritation, airway inflammation and damage to lung tissue. These particles cause heart and lung disease, asthma, adverse birth outcomes, cancer, and premature death. Pittsburgh's air was unhealthy to breathe for 57 days in 2020 More about Jon Hurdle, Never miss a feature! Deaths from coronary heart disease among lower income and minority residents accounted for 40 percent of the countys total, even though they represent only 28 percent of the population, the study said. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Get Pitt and Oakland news in your inbox, three times a week. Jon Hurdle. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Proposed apartment complex on vacant Irish Center Site evokes community frustration, Carnegie Museum debuts Japanese printmaking exhibit, University unveils design and plans for new BioForge center, Editorial | Discounted in-state tuition is more important now than ever, Opinion | It wasnt five people lost at sea, it was more than six hundred. For now, she has decided to stay. Pittsburgh shrouded in smoke at mid-day, circa 1940. Howard Rieger, an activist who has organized a series of community townhalls to fight for better air quality, said a deferential attitude to U.S. Steel persists because if you think about what built Pittsburgh, sustained Pittsburgh, it was the steel industry. Permitting is a key area that needs to be improved. Why Can't Pittsburgh Get Its Act Together on Air Quality? The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. ", Rackley says, the smoke could affect air travel later today. First published on April 23, 2022 / 1:24 PM. The first of these is the Mon Valley Works, which actually consists of three facilities in and of itself Clairton Coke Works, Edgar Thomson Steel Works and the Irvin Plant. 2022 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Smoke and haze from Canadian wildfires over downtown Pittsburgh on June 28, 2023. In addition, our So2 and PM 2.5 state implementation plans require significant emission reductions. Cookie Notice Learn about careers at Cox Media Group. and our You can submit an air quality complaint by calling 412-687-2243 or . Dr. Karen Hacker, director of the Allegheny County Health Department responded to the State of the Air report, saying that while the County is doing more than ever, they need to do more still. Sixty percent of the regions pollution still comes from industrial sources like steel plants, in contrast to metropolitan areas like New York, where transportation and heating of residential and commercial buildings generate the majority of air pollutants. As of Wednesday afternoon, two of the four Indiana Department of Environmental Management testing sites in Marion County were registering the air quality as 'very . Some 350 Allegheny County teens from under-resourced communities where gun violence is prevalent participated in the Out of Chaos symposium on the University of Pittsburgh campus on Thursday. As Africa Loses Forest, Its Small Farmers Are Bringing Back Trees, How Warming Ruined a Crab Fishery and Hurt an Alaskan Town, Beyond the Yuck Factor: Cities Turn to Extreme Water Recycling. Our. The first of these is the Mon Valley Works, which actually consists of three . For annual particles, the three-year average worsened, increasing from 12.6 to 12.8 micrograms per cubic meter. In fact, on Wednesday, Clairton. Regional railroad companies . even pollution levels below federal standards are dangerous. With over $1 billion in funding from the federal government, the state hopes to change that. 12:13. A photo of haze and smoke over Pittsburgh taken from Fineview, on June 28, 2023. (See the list of top 10 polluters in the region here.). Experts did mention that pollution levels dropped for a time during the pandemic because people were not commuting as much as usual. The chance of precipitation is 60 percent. Its a catch-all term that includes acids, inorganic compounds, organic chemicals, soot, metal or dust particles, as well as biological materials like pollen or mold spores. But storms were only one factor behind the travel nightmare. The AQI reports on five major air pollutants: ozone, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide. All rights reserved. When we do have an air quality action day, like we did earlier this week, residents are urged not to mow their lawns, to take a bus instead of using a personal automobile and to reduce outdoor exercise. Other factors, such as a persons insurance coverage, also played a role. Created by our advertising software OpenX. as you might guess refers to bits of solids and drops of liquids that hang in the air. Its also difficult to persuade residents some of whom dont have smartphones or even internet connections to report air-quality violations on a hard-to-navigate county website. 412-263-1601. localnews@post-gazette.com. Though, the Allegheny County Health Department forced the company to cut emissions by threatening to make it cut production, McConway & Torley poses a particularly grave problem because it has a. to many emissions regulations, which means that the Health Department cant do much when it violates more protective standards. These recommendations are good, but what is industry doing to lessen their much larger contribution to our air pollution problem? It could trigger asthma attacks, it could trigger worsening of your COPD. Are Sea Cucumbers a Cleanup Solution to Fish Farm Pollution. The EPA found that 39 percent of school children who live in proximity to major sources of industrial pollution are exposed to emissions that exceed federal guidelines. The county said the Air Quality Program's Parkway East monitor recently registered readings of "very unhealthy," or an . Its an open secret that Pittsburghs air quality is awful, and that living here is. As of 11:30 a.m., Pittsburgh had an air quality index of 232 when it comes to particle pollution, which is considered "very unhealthy," according to AirNow.gov. A recent outbreak of wildfires in western Canada is again sending a plume of unhealthy smoke into the United States. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you. In April 2021, the American Lung Association rated the 12-county Pittsburgh region as the ninth-worst U.S. metropolitan area for fine particle pollution, even though it rose that year to its best-ever level by that measure. Air quality worsens amid Canadian wildfires smoke: how to stay safe Much like it did two weeks ago, a smoky haze has settled over central Pennsylvania and beyond, the result of wildfires burning to the north. Some are large enough to see with your naked eye (soot or dust, for example), while you would need to scrutinize others with an electron microscope in order to see them at all. Pittsburgh Has Bad Air, Severe Storms Possibilty - Patch Most of these have to do with transportation taking the bus, biking or walking instead of driving, for example, or combining multiple errands into one trip to avoid cold starting your car. As such, we call upon industry leaders, at both the local and regional levels, to join us in doing what is needed to accelerate change.. Clairton, where 37 percent residents are Black, is one of the regions environmental justice communities as designated by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania which are disproportionately affected by pollution and related illnesses, including asthma and cancer. Its an open secret that Pittsburghs air quality is awful, and that living here is dangerous to everyones health especially children, older adults and those living with lung conditions such as asthma. AQI also assigns numeric values to each level. Air quality alerts were in effect Saturday for at least eight states across the . The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes. They all produce steel, and Clairton is the largest polluter in the region, with the area coming in at third in the United States for air pollutant-related cancer risk. PM 10 Fair Particulate Matter are inhalable pollutant particles with a diameter less than 10 micrometers. Unfortunately, it isnt being treated as such by regulators or decision makers. McConway & Torley, a steel foundry right smack in the middle of Lawrenceville, has also raised concerns from residents about air pollution. And beyond those spikes, were among the regions seeing higherparticle levels year-round. In an ideal world you want to be preventing the disease and stopping attacks by preventing exposure to triggers., Germaine Gooden-Patterson, a community health worker in Clairton. Natural gas was piped into the city. She has considered moving away, but growing community engagement has persuaded her that efforts to mobilize her neighbors are taking hold. PennEnvironment, an advocacy group, maintains that the health departments historical reliance on consent orders with industrial polluters rather than the imposition of strong penalties has led to a failure to enforce standards. Sarah writes primarily about trees, climate change and walking. 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