The federal Environmental Protection Agency yesterday ordered 10 counties in Western Pennsylvania and 22 across the state to develop plans to reduce health-harming airborne soot by 2010.

	Online Graphic View a graphic on air quality compliance in Western Pennsylvania

The order was part of the EPA's release of a list of 225 counties across the country that don't meet federal standards that limit fine particulate pollution -- known as PM2.5 -- to 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The states where the counties are located will have three years to develop acceptable plans to reduce soot, and then must meet the standards by 2010.

The announcement drew criticism from clean-air groups for not being tough enough and from development organizations that say stricter standards will have "a chilling effect" on potential new industry.

The Allegheny County Health Department said it's too soon to say whether the order will have any impact on new industry because it will take the EPA until early 2006 to publish rules that could limit new sources of pollution.

The counties cited in Western Pennsylvania for being fully out of compliance are Beaver, Butler, Mercer, Washington and Westmoreland. Five others, Allegheny, Armstrong, Greene, Indiana and Lawrence, are partially out of compliance because they have specific sources of pollution like power plants that foul the air immediately around them but not the rest of the county.

In Allegheny County, the EPA said two areas have too much soot, the area around U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works and the greater Pittsburgh area, which includes the city and most adjacent suburbs. The state had pushed for a third area around U.S. Steel's Edgar Thomson Plant in North Braddock, but that area was included as part of greater Pittsburgh.

The state Department of Environmental Protection, which will develop compliance plans for the state, wanted partial designations because it believes it will be easier to address pollution from specific sources, said information specialist Ana Gomez. The state will begin developing plans once guidelines are published in early 2006.

Judith Katz, director of air protection for EPA's Philadelphia office, said the agency began monitoring soot in 1999 and the areas cited have not met the standards over the past three years. She said health problems related to soot have resulted in an estimated 15,000 premature deaths and 3.1 million missed work days each year.

"[Meeting the fine particulate standards] will do for smokestacks what ozone standards have done for tailpipes," she said.

Katz's office covers a five-state area that includes Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Delaware and Maryland. She agreed with state officials who claim much of the problem in the region comes from upwind power plants in states to the west.

To address that situation, the EPA is expected to announce new rules next year that will limit power plant emissions in areas where the pollution is likely to cross state lines. Those rules will allow power plants to save and trade pollution credits with other plants.

"At least half of [the soot] in much of the region comes from other areas," Katz said. "We think a lot of power plants will want to come into compliance [before 2010] because of the incentives."

States can use projected soot reductions from plants in other states when they develop their own plans to meet the requirements.

The Allegheny Conference, which pushes development in Allegheny County, disagreed with the EPA's decision to name counties with too much soot before it cleans up out-of-state power plants.

A study by Carnegie Mellon University shows as much as 80 percent of soot in southwestern Pennsylvania -- except for the industrial Monongahela Valley -- comes from outside the area, said Kathryn Klaber, vice president of the Allegheny Conference.

"The best solution for both the environment and economic development is for EPA to address interstate transport first, and only regulate any residual PM2.5 problems," she said.

Conference President Harold Miller, who also is director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Growth Alliance, said the designation would have a "chilling effect" on development in southwestern Pennsylvania.

"It is a completely backwards approach to trying to clean the air," he said.

Katz said the Clairton Coke Works has done a "marvelous" job controlling emissions over the years, but monitoring shows air around the plant still has too much soot. "This may have to be a technology-driven thing where they have to develop a new way to clean the air even better," he said.

U.S. Steel spokesman John Armstrong said the company has "every intention of being in compliance" with the air standard by 2010.

Guillermo Cole, spokesman for the Allegheny County Health Department, said it is too soon to say without written rules from the EPA whether specific industries or potential new plants would be impacted by the designation. He noted the department this year set a new rule to limit idling of school buses and is developing new idling rules for other diesel-powered vehicles next year that should help reduce soot.

The overall plan will be developed once federal guidelines are published, he said. Allegheny County will submit its plan to the state, which will develop plans for other counties that don't have their own health departments.

Environmental groups like PennFuture and the state Clean Air Council say the regulations don't go far enough to reduce pollution. PennFuture particularly disagreed with designating only a portion of some counties out of compliance with regulations.

"You can't just cross the street into clean air," said Charles McPhedran, senior attorney for PennFuture and a former EPA attorney. "This is a regional problem and must be dealt with regionwide."

Clean Air spokesman Arthur Stamoulis said the Bush administration is standing in the way of air improvements by holding back on power plant rules that were expected to be in place by the end of the year. Before implementing the rules, Bush wants to make another attempt at passing his Clean Skies legislation when the new Congress convenes in January .

"Delaying real cleanup measures in order to give this bill another chance is a mistake that's hurting public health in Pennsylvania," said Stamoulis. "Pennsylvanians should not have to wait around for healthy air."

Other counties in Pennsylvania that will have to reduce soot are Berks, Bucks, Cambria, Chester, Cumberland, Dauphin, Delaware, Lancaster, Lebanon, Montgomery, Philadelphia and York.

In the five-state region, 59 counties were cited for too much soot. Nationally, 225 counties were cited in 20 states.

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