Health Department to spend clean air funds to renovate office space,
Environmental groups, county at odds over building renovations
Despite pushback from several environmental organizations, the Allegheny County Health Department on Wednesday approved spending $66,000 from the county Clean Air Fund for oversight of renovations at the air program office in Lawrenceville.
The renovation work on Building No. 1 in the historic Clack Health Center could eventually total more than $10 million, with half coming from the Clean Air Fund — from industry air pollution fines — and half from the Title V Fund, which gets its money from industrial permitting fees.
The money approved by the board will pay for half of the pre-construction oversight work that will be performed by Massaro Construction Group of O’Hara. A funding request for the full project costs is scheduled for board action in September.
Ashleigh Deemer, the Western Pennsylvania director for PennEnvironment, said Wednesday’s board action was one of a series of funding decisions that could eventually take more than 40 percent of the Clean Air Fund’s balance.
Environmental groups say the $11 million in the Clean Air Fund should be spent only on programs to reduce air pollution, not facilities.
“The use of this money for this project is unlawful,” said David Smith, outreach coordinator for the Clean Air Council. “The department’s air regulations require that money from the Clean Air Fund may be used solely to support activities related to the improvement of air quality and to support activities which will increase or improve knowledge concerning air pollution. The building [renovation] project is not such a project.”
But Caroline Mitchell, a board
member and an attorney, said building renovations are an appropriate use of the fund.
“We are charged, as a board of health, with the legal responsibility to get cleaner air,” Ms. Mitchell said. “The county’s Article 21 authorizes us to support activities related to air quality and any other mission of the health department.”
Rachel Filippini, executive director of the Group Against Smog and Pollution, urged the board to reject funding the project with Clean Air Fund money, saying the county, which has more than $444 million “cash on hand” and is in good financial shape, should pay for renovating property it owns.
“Allegheny County’s childhood asthma rates, our elevated cancer risk due to breathing in air toxics, and the fact that we can’t get off the American Lung Association’s top 10 list for most polluted air all make it crystal clear that using the county’s Clean Air Fund for anything but projects that will actually improve the air would be wrong,” Ms. Filippini said.
In a separate action, the board allotted 5 percent of the Clean Air Fund, about $580,000, for county Clean Air Program operating costs.
The board also got an initial report on plans to pursue more stringent coke oven regulations aimed at lowering sulfur dioxides and airborne particulate matter emissions that exceed federal standards and reducing the sulfuric “rotten egg” smell that sometimes wafts into Mon Valley and East End communities.
Health department director Karen Hacker said higher particulate and sulfur dioxides emissions measured at the Liberty air monitor at South Allegheny High School come from multiple sources, but the largest is U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works.
Jim Kelly, the health department’s deputy director, said that while the county’s regulations for coke facilities are the most stringent in the nation, its regulation of “fugitive emissions” around coke oven doors and other equipment are “a little lax.”
“I expect this will be a bit controversial,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll get a lot of pushback from industry.”
Dr. Lee Harrison, the board chairman, asked whether the steelmaker was aware of the plans to toughen coke regulation.
“Not yet,” Mr. Kelly replied.
Meghan Cox, a U.S. Steel spokeswoman, said the company is in regular communication with the health department and awaits details of any proposed regulatory changes.