Region meeting smog standard
Air pollution declines in West Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania isn’t as smoggy as it once was, an improvement the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognized Tuesday by saying the region had attained 2015 ground-level ozone standards.
The Pittsburgh-New CastleWeirton metropolitan area meets the 70 parts per billion ozone limit exactly, based on its three-year average. The metro area, which includes 12 counties in southwestern Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and northern West Virginia, previously was in nonattainment of a higher, 75 parts per billion ozone standard established in 2008.
This marks the first time the region has been designated in attainment with ozone standards in the 20 years since the EPA began setting them.
At the same time, the EPA identified 51 areas in 22 states as failing to attain the ozone standard. One of those areas is the PhiladelphiaWilmington-Atlantic City metropolitan area that in Pennsylvania includes Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties.
The Harrisburg-York-LebanonLancaster region attained the federal health-based ozone standard.
Jayme Graham, manager of the Allegheny County Health Department’s air program, said the new designation is a result of reduced
pollution emissions and improving air quality both regionally and locally. She said the region’s three-year average for the periods of both 2014-2016 and 2015-2017 was in attainment.
“Emissions from power plants and motor vehicles have been reduced,” she said, adding that the power plant reductions occurred in part because of plant closings but also because of better controls on nitrogen oxides emissions.
“We are pleased that all three ozone monitors have met attainment of the EPA’s ground-level ozone standard for the second consecutive year,” said Karen Hacker, director of the Allegheny County Health Department. “We’re proud of this milestone, but we also know that air quality in the county continues to be a problem.”
She said an air monitor in Liberty, in particular, continues to exceed EPA standards for both PM 2.5 and SO2 — fine airborne particulate matter and sulfur dioxides. That monitor is downwind from U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works, the biggest industrial emitter of industrial pollutants in the region.
“Addressing this issue is one of our top priorities,” she said.
Ground-level ozone is a gas formed by the reaction of volatile organic compounds, “VOCs,” and nitrogen oxides, or “NOx,” in the presence of sunlight. Ozone levels are the principal component of unhealthy smog and are likely to be highest in the summer.
For example, at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, a warm and sunny day, the DEP listed the Pittsburgh regional ozone reading at 102 — a high level that is designated “unhealthy for sensitive groups.”
According to the EPA, VOCs and NOx, known as “precursor emissions,” come from a variety of pollution sources, but primarily power plants and industries, on-road and off-road motor vehicles, and engines.
Ms. Graham said the Pittsburgh metro region remains in nonattainment for NOx and PM 2.5. She said the EPA’s approval of a plan to address NOx is expected soon.
The federal Clean Air Act requires local and state air agencies to take steps to control ozone pollution in designated nonattainment areas.
The Environmental Defense Fund, an international non-profit advocacy organization, said the EPA’s nonattainment designations are an important first step for communities trying to reduce air pollution levels.
EDF criticized the EPA for missing the October deadline for setting those designations. In March, prompted by a lawsuit filed by a coalition of states and environmental and health organizations, a federal court ordered the EPA to make those designations by Monday. The EPA announced them Tuesday.
“It’s nice we finally got the designations, but they should have been made six months ago,” said Elena Craft, senior health scientist for EDF. “[The EPA’s] actions are long overdue, incomplete, and only done to comply with the court order.”
Ms. Craft said areas designated as marginally out of attainment have only three years to reduce emissions and meet the ozone standard.
“Unless they get very aggressive with their controls,” she said, “they’re not going to meet the deadline.”
The designations announced Tuesday will take effect 60 days after they are published in the Federal Register.