Is Better Good Enough?

[Panich52]

Pittsburgh Quarterly
Fall 2014

Despite improvement, the region is losing the race for cleaner air
by JEFFERY FRASER
REGION

Martha Rial
Emissions from the Shenango, Inc. coke works is a subject of growing concern among residents of Allegheny County's north boroughs. The 52-year-old plant, located five miles northwest of downtown Pittsburgh on the Ohio River's Neville Island, bakes coal to produce 350,000 tons of coke a year to fuel steelmaking in Michigan. Recent court-ordered improvements are the latest attempt to curb chronic air quality violations that have made Shenango one of the single-largest pollution sources in the county.

A standing-​room-​only audience has packed the Avalon Municipal Building on a rain-​soaked April evening to hear Allegheny County Health Department officials explain the latest consent decree to correct air quality violations at the coke works across the river. It’s a tough crowd.

Most live in the north boroughs near the Shenango, Inc. plant. They know the long history of enforcement actions against it that were followed by fixes that were followed by new violations. They’re aware of the health risks that air pollutants pose, and studies that suggest their rates of disease are high. They speak in voices that express concern and fear, frustration and anger.

No one is more emphatic than Ken Holmes. “They have a lot of problems at that plant. I’ve been here for 10 years. I used to go to meetings and I’d hear the same issues I’m hearing now,” the Bellevue resident says in a voice that does not require a microphone. “Their problems are becoming the community’s problems, and that shouldn’t be the case.

“You’re the Health Department. Why are you not shutting them down? We don’t need to know the mechanics of their operation. We already know there’s a lot of poison coming out of this plant, and people are suffering. Why haven’t they been shut down?”

History suggests that, barring a catastrophic incident, closing the coke plant won’t be given serious consideration — that the enforcement model used almost always gives plants like Shenango a chance to correct pollution-​causing problems when they arise, regardless of how often that occurs.

-snip-

‘It’s a dirty process’

Sometime last summer, county air quality inspectors noticed mounting problems with emissions coming from several points throughout the Shenango coke plant, which has operated for 52 years on heavily industrialized Neville Island in the Ohio River, five miles downstream of downtown Pittsburgh. The violations led the Health Department Air Quality Program to double inspections to build a case against the coke works, which has been owned by Ann Arbor, Mich.-based DTE Energy Services since 2008.

More
http://pittsburghquarterly.com/pq-health-science/pq-environment/item/92-is-better-good-enough.html


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And this was in 2014, before SCROTUS decided the EPA was relatively unnecessary. The pic reminds me of 1970s when CBers used "Smoky City" when referring to Pittsburgh.


xp—Envir&Energy