Western Pennsylvania's air became cleaner, but its national air pollution ranking worsened in the past year, according to a report released today.
The eight-county Pittsburgh-New Castle metropolitan area moved from fourth worst in the U.S. for fine-particle pollution to third worst in the American Lung Association's seventh annual State of the Air report. Even though air pollution levels in Western Pennsylvania dropped, other U.S. regions had bigger reductions.
"I'm glad to hear that air quality is continuing to improve everywhere," said Roger Westman, air quality program manager for the Allegheny County Health Department. "But we still don't find it too terribly surprising that (the region) continues to rank high. It's the Liberty-Clairton area that ranks us high."
That area, where an air pollution monitor is located near U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works, had the worst fine particle readings. If the monitor wasn't included in the results, the region would rank about the same as Washington, D.C., Detroit and Columbus, Ohio, according to the health department. Other regions also have monitors located near factories or power plants.
The size of U.S. Steel's plant -- the largest coke works in the U.S. -- and its location in a pollution-trapping river valley cause high readings, even though the operation generally complies with health department rules, Westman said.
John Armstrong, spokesman for U.S. Steel, said the company has new technology and work practices to help reduce pollution.
Allegheny County had 12 air pollution monitors and now has eight. The lung association bases its report on the worst monitor readings in each metro area, averaged over a three-year period. For the 2006 report, researchers averaged readings from 2002, 2003 and 2004.
According to the report, invisible, fine-particle pollution puts at risk half of the 2.5 million people in the Pittsburgh-New Castle metropolitan area -- Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Lawrence, Washington and Westmoreland counties.
Burning fossil fuels is the major source of fine-particle emissions. Coal-fired power plants, factories and vehicles are primary emitters.
"When people look at the sky and see a blue sky with puffy clouds, they think we don't have a problem. ... It's the stuff we can't see that's a problem," said Rachel Filippini, executive director of the Squirrel Hill-based Group Against Smog and Pollution.
Fine particles are less than 1/30th the thickness of a human hair, usually can't be seen with the naked eye and often produce no odor. They can burrow deep into the lungs, causing or aggravating asthma, chronic bronchitis, heart disease, diabetes and emphysema, said Dr. Peter Michelson, clinical director of pulmonology at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
Deaths from heart disease and lung cancer in Western Pennsylvania are above national averages, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Heart disease kills 9.5 percent more people here than nationally; lung cancer kills 4.8 percent more people here. Emergency visits for asthma at Children's Hospital are five to six times the national rates, Michelson said.
Pittsburgh's air is much cleaner than in the first half of the 1900s, when Downtown businessmen often had to change soot-stained shirts at lunch. Then, air pollution was obvious, but those particles that created the visible pollution were large enough that they could be coughed or sneezed out of the lungs.
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