Task force recommends Allegheny County retain, but modify, air pollution program
Share with others:
More than a dozen years after politicians and industrial concerns first proposed ending Allegheny County's pioneering air pollution control program, County Executive Dan Onorato has accepted a task force's recommendation that the county retain the program but make significant changes in its operations.
Now the question is whether the proposed changes -- some of them expensive, time-consuming and controversial -- will aid or hinder the Allegheny County Health Department in enforcing air pollution regulations that protect human health.
The county-appointed task force report will be submitted Wednesday to the county Board of Health, which will review and carry out its recommendations, County Manager James Flynn Jr. said.
The 27-page report recommends retaining the 51-year-old Air Bureau within the Health Department, rather than turning over pollution regulation to the state. But that recommendation is dependent on implementing "fundamental changes" -- some within tight deadlines -- in air monitoring and enforcement, issuing permits for pollution sources and appeals of those permits.
The report also proposes renovating the bureau's dilapidated offices in Building Seven of the Clack Health Center in Lawrenceville and improvements to computer and communications equipment.
"The overall recommendations of the task force is that the air division has done a good job lately and, with these [proposed] changes, should stay with the county," Mr. Flynn said.
The biggest and most contentious task force recommendation calls for a total revision of county air pollution regulations, some of which are more stringent than those enacted by the state.
The report calls for replacing the county regulations with Pennsylvania's air regulations to make them clearer and easier to apply. It also would carve out and retain existing county regulations that are more stringent than those of the state, although it is not clear if all of those regulations would be retained.
Those would include tight emissions limits aimed at bringing the county into compliance with federal air quality standards, as well as rules covering air issues the state doesn't regulate -- including asbestos removal, abrasive blasting, lead and coke oven emissions.
First Published January 10, 2010 12:00 am
