Timing for air-quality hearings is decried
‘The county is looking at what makes sense mechanically for the plant, rather than the health of the people living nearby.’
It’s the holiday season and the Allegheny County Health Department has wrapped up its work on controversial, first-ever operating permits for the McConway & Torley foundry in Lawrenceville and the Allegheny Ludlum steel mill in Brackenridge, and put them under the tree for public comment and hearings.
But environmental groups say the timing will work against full public participation.
“We’ve been after the health department to get these permits done for quite a while, and now it’s put them both out for comment, along with eight others, at the end of the year,” said Zachary Barber, Western Pennsylvania organizer for PennEnvironment, one of four environmental organizations that have pressed the health department to produce permits that significantly reduce air pollution emissions from the two long-time industrial operations.
The public hearing on the permit for the McConway & Torley foundry in Lawrenceville is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at Arsenal Middle School. The hearing on Allegheny Ludlum’s operating permit is scheduled for 6 p.m. Dec. 19 at the Harrison Township Municipal Building.
Both hearings mark the end of 30-day public comment periods on those federally-mandated, Title V
operating permits, each of which has been pending final approval for 22 years. The permits are required for a “major source” that has the potential to emit 100 tons of any air pollutant, 10 tons of any single hazardous pollutant or 25 tons of a combination of hazardous pollutants.
“Doing them together is going to work to stifle public engagement,” Mr. Barber said, “and hurts the public’s opportunity to review these draft permits and come out for hearings during the holiday shopping season.”
Allegheny Ludlum, owned by Allegheny Technologies Inc. and located 20 miles up the Allegheny River from Pittsburgh’s Point, is the fourth biggest emitter of toxic pollutants in the county, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Environmental organizations, including PennEnvironment, the Group Against Smog and Pollution, the Clean Air Council and the Environmental Integrity Project, have criticized the draft permit for the steelmaker, owned by Allegheny Technologies Inc., saying it sets emissions limits too high.
“Its emissions allowances are higher than that for a similarly sized, 30year-old power plant,” Mr. Barber said. “The county is looking at what makes sense mechanically for the plant, rather than the health of the people living nearby.”
County officials have defended the permit’s emissions limits, saying actual emissions from the plant are much lower than those allowed in the permit, which are required by law, based on engineering formulas governing the steel plant’s 90 individual emissions sources.
The draft permit for McConway & Torley, a foundry that makes rail car couplers and the county’s eighth biggest emitter of toxic pollutants, has also drawn fire from the environmental groups due to its odors, emissions of benzene and manganese, lack of adequate air monitoring, and location in a densely populated city neighborhood less than a mile from Arsenal Middle School.
“There’s a leadership issue when it comes to steel facilities and other industries that makes the health department reluctant to move too fast,’ said Lisa Graves-Marcucci, an Environmental integrity project organizer. “The county has been giving passes to polluters for too long, giving away its air quality instead of doing what’s best for fence linecommunities.”
“Doing them together is going to work to stifle public engagement, and hurts the public’s opportunity to review these draft permits and come out for hearings during the holiday shopping season.” — Zachary Barber, PennEnvironment