Are mercury levels in Pittsburgh-area rivers a health threat? If so, how big a threat? What are the risks from coal waste impoundments and gas well drilling operations? What about emissions from power plants, specific industrial facilities or diesel engine-powered construction equipment and tow boats?

A comprehensive environmental health risk analysis for southwestern Pennsylvania, recently started by the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Healthy Environments & Communities, aims to provide some answers to those questions and dozens more.

The $250,000 project, funded by the Heinz Endowments, has begun to interview academics, government regulators and local leaders. It will soon hold a series of public meetings to gather information about perceived environmental threats in 10 southwestern Pennsylvania counties.

Analysts then will gather additional data to assess the environmental threats and the effectiveness of existing programs in addressing the threats, compare the local risks to those in other regions of the country and identify gaps in existing environmental programs.

"It's a big deal and this is the first piece of the puzzle in determining how the region stacks up on environmental threats versus environmental standards and other regions," said Dr. Conrad Dan Volz, assistant professor for Environmental & Occupational Health at Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health and the director and principal investigator for the threat analysis project.

"We want to know what key informants and the public thinks and we'll be asking questions about threats, sources and problem sites. We'll be looking at lots of things. Our list of potential threats is already somewhere between 30 and 40."

He said the early list includes emissions from several coal-fired power plants, water quality in area rivers and coal ash lagoon sites like Beaver County's Little Blue Run, the biggest in the East.

Investigators analyzing the threats will gather feedback from regulators and industries involved, and do independent research, including the mining of databases that contain information about ambient air quality and air toxics, water quality and public health tracking.

The project also will assess the performance of local environmental programs compared to best practices across the country.

Dr. Volz said the project will hold four or five geographically diverse public meetings in urban and suburban areas and ask environmental and community organizations to complete in-depth surveys.

"The overall idea is to see how southwestern Pennsylvania is doing environmentally," Dr. Volz said. "We'll look at real data and find out what programs are in place and we need to do better at or add. We'll do a gap analysis to determine if certain threats are not addressed."

Doug Root, a spokesman for the Heinz Endowments, said the goal of the study is to inform foundations about regional environmental conditions and how they affect human and ecosystem health.

"Our long-range purpose is to make our grant-making in specific areas related to the environment more effective," Mr. Root said. "We want to know what the priorities are so we know what we want to address.

"We also want the project to supply educational information to the region itself and other foundations and educational institutions that may want to get involved."

A final report is due by July of next year. Dr. Volz said he is seeking additional funding for a second year to extend the risk analysis to the larger Tri-State region.

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