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Environmentalists call both Neville Chemical Co. and Shenango Inc. the inspiration behind a so-called bad-actor policy aimed at reining in chronic air polluters in Allegheny County.

"It concerned me that polluters could continue to expand and continue to pollute without any consequences to them," said Pat Snowden Dittig, a Bellevue resident and member of Clean Water Action -- a nonprofit environmental group that has been pushing the Allegheny County Board of Health and County Council to enforce bad-actor regulations.

Representatives of the two targeted Neville Island companies, though, call the bad-actor regulations too broad, too punitive and potentially too threatening to the existence of other companies. Although the companies say they don't fear for their own survival, they believe the policy would keep them from upgrading equipment.

The county Board of Health is conducting a public hearing Wednesday to determine whether to implement the bad-actor regulations, which would prohibit violators of air-pollution permits from expanding or building new facilities.

Last month, County Council adopted a bad-actor policy, which went into effect when Chief Executive Jim Roddey signed it Sept. 2.

The county Board of Health, however, isn't convinced County Council has the authority to set such policy. In addition, health department officials oppose the bad-actor regulations, saying they are unnecessary because existing laws already give them such authority.

"We're not enforcing (the county policy), I can tell you that," said health department spokesman Guillermo Cole.

Environmentalists complain the health department doesn't use its powers nearly enough.

Clean Water Action began its campaign for a bad-actor policy several years ago, after the health department issued permits to Shenango and Neville Chemical that would have allowed them to increase air-pollution emissions -- although both companies were violating their air-pollution permits.

Shenango's problems have continued for more than 20 years, despite operating under federal consent decrees to clean up emissions, said Myron Arnowitt, the Western Pennsylvania director of Clean Water Action.

The county health department has the responsibility to enforce the federal Clean Air Act. An EPA report released in June slammed the department for its lax enforcement. Department and Board of Health officials have vowed to improve the air-quality program.

Representatives of Shenango, a coke producer, and Neville Chemical, a hydrocarbon resin manufacturer, have acknowledged pollution problems. They said, however, that enforcing the bad-actor policy would go too far by possibly driving out some businesses in Western Pennsylvania -- at least out of Allegheny County.

The companies' representatives also said that County Council's policy would leave numerous loopholes that environmentalists or others could use to tie up permits for years with legal battles -- inhibiting or halting their businesses.

The council's ordinance "wasn't aimed at specific companies," said council Vice President Rich Fitzgerald, D-Squirrel Hill, one of the co-sponsors. He said the intent is to get companies to comply with air-pollution regulations.

"I don't know that the health department has been vigilant in keeping them in line," Fitzgerald said.

The health department found 14 violations of the Clean Air Act at Neville Chemical from 1999 through 2002; none of the regulations resulted in fines. During that time, the department issued the company five installation permits; four of the installations were completed.

The health department cited Shenango for 602 air-pollution violations that resulted in $312,750 in fines from 1998 through June of this year.

Many more violations did not result in fines, said Roger Westman, manager of the health department's air-quality program. Health department officials said they could not provide the numbers. Another health official said, for example, that Shenango had 15 violations in the second quarter of this year; four resulted in penalties totaling $1,875.

Shenango's violations have dropped dramatically, from 281 penalty-producing violations in 1998 to 45 last year, which county and company officials attribute to the addition of a $12 million desulfurization plant. The change was made under a June 2000 consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Westman said that because of the dirty nature of turning coal into coke, no coke producer in the country could go 12 months -- as required by the county council's ordinance -- without violating strict federal air-pollution standards.

Daniel Demoise, executive vice president of operations at Shenango, said Allegheny County's permit process takes at least two years. As a result, companies would have to be violation-free for three years.

Shenango's previous expansion plans that helped to spur the bad-actor policy were dropped because the permit process took so long and the company lost its financing, said James Birsic, vice president of health, safety, environment and law at Shenango.

The company is not planning to expand or build facilities, but officials say a bad-actor provision could keep them from replacing equipment.

The health department inspects Shenango -- which produces about 350,000 tons of coke and byproducts a year -- and the county's other coke producer, US Steel's Clairton Works, far more often than any other company in the county, Birsic said. County inspectors visit the coke plants once or twice a week, and a continuous air-sampling monitor is attached to one of Shenango's smokestacks.

"If everybody was held to the same standard, I think there'd be a bigger outcry from the regulated community," Birsic said. "Some industries never see a county health inspector."

Clairton Works -- the largest coke-making facility in the Northern Hemisphere, averaging 12,800 tons each day -- has received awards for its environmental cleanliness from the EPA and the state. Still, it racked up $50,075 in penalties after the county department found eight violations during 2000 and 2001.

If County Council's bad-actor provision is enforced, "US Steel would never get another permit for Clairton Works -- the nation's cleanest coke plant, the nation's best coke plant," said Westman of the county health department.

Down the road from Shenango, inspections around Neville Chemical have been stepped up during the past 18 months to one to two a week as odor complaints soared, Westman said. County inspectors found numerous violations -- the reports pile nearly an inch high -- but he said he is not taking enforcement actions now. Instead, he is using the violations as leverage to bring the company into compliance.

"They know what I'm sitting on. They know what the potential is. I'm ready to use it if I don't get the cooperation," Westman said.

Jack Ferguson, vice president of manufacturing for Neville Chemical, said he is not aware of any air-pollution violations. He said the company did get a letter from the county, saying that improvements are needed.

Odor complaints have risen over the past three years, Ferguson said, and the company is reviewing its manufacturing processes and trying to determine where the leaks might be.

"Hopefully, we're making some strides on that," he said.

"Clean Water Action has had Neville Island (companies) targeted for some time," Ferguson said. "At the end of the day, they really just want industry out of Allegheny County. They're an advocacy group, and that's what they're advocating."

Clean Water Action's Arnowitt and Dittig denied the allegations, saying they do not want area jobs lost. They said they want residents' health protected.

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