Larger text
Smaller text
Print
E-mail
Blast furnace cleanup battle getting hot
Sign up for PghScience, the Pittsburgh Trib's free weekly e-mail newsletter with the latest science, technology and medical news. E-Newsletters
Allison M. Heinrichs can be reached via e-mail or at 412-380-5607.
On Nov. 2, the county Board of Health voted unanimously to give $1.3 million from the fund to aid the Regional Industrial Development Corp. in demolishing 15 crumbling, asbestos-laden blast furnaces on a former U.S. Steel site at Duquesne City Center, provoking outraged responses from the Squirrel Hill-based Group Against Smog & Pollution.
"This is an economic development project that will have little to no air-quality benefits," said GASP spokeswoman Elizabeth Rosemeyer.
The Allegheny County Health Department, county Chief Executive Dan Onorato and county Manager Jim Flynn -- the Board of Health member who proposed using the money -- are also named as defendants. A judge is expected on Thursday to schedule a hearing date, Rosemeyer said.
Two weeks after the Board of Health gave its approval, Allegheny County's Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee unanimously recommended the county not use the money, almost 20 percent of the $7.5 million fund, for the Duquesne project. The board typically consults with the committee before making decisions concerning the fund, although it didn't in this case. The board also does not have to act on the committee's recommendations.
Onorato supports using the fund to pay for the project, but no money has been spent yet and the project has not been issued a permit to begin asbestos removal, county spokespeople said.
There are other sources of funding that are more appropriate for asbestos removal, such as state Growing Greener funds, which can be used to remove the carcinogenic asbestos, Rosemeyer said. Using the Clean Air Fund, which is made up of fines from air pollution violators, will set a precedent that other development groups will exploit, eventually depleting the fund, she said.
According to county health department regulations, the fund is "solely to support activities related to the improvement of air quality within Allegheny County, and support activities which will increase or improve knowledge concerning air pollution, its causes, its effects and the control thereof."
When Flynn presented the proposal to the Board of Health, he said that removing asbestos, a known carcinogen, will improve air quality. He called it a pilot program that would be limited to brownfield sites that impact the county's air quality.
The stoves need to be removed soon so that an access ramp can be built to the development site, Flynn said.
County Solicitor Mike Wojcik said in November that RIDC is the first group he knows of that has been allowed to use the Clean Air Fund to prepare land for development, but that he found it to be an appropriate use of the fund.
More Pittsburgh, Allegheny headlines
- Humar believes in being UPMC surgeon first, administrator second
- Defendant cooperates with DA in Meadows casino theft
- Planners need billions to rehabilitate roadways, bridges
- UPMC unit to increase use of organs from living donors
- Autopsy shows Hill District baby in bin was stillborn
- Cranberry couple under investigation in use of orphans' trust fund
- Fewer flights don't result in fewer authority workers in Allegheny
- UPMC Braddock closure plan upsets council
