Pittsburgh ranked as nation's second most polluted city (Philadelphia, Indiana: compensation, living in)

[MK0991]

I guess Rand-McNally's who rated Pittsburgh as most livable city, didn't consider this factor...I have been living in this city for past 6 yrs still can't figure out where the heck is all pollution coming from...any idea?

[mams1559]

My opinion would be car pollution. They're talking about air quality and ozone levels near the ground (they say can be harmful). With the hills and valleys of Pittsburgh and more people commuting from north & south it creates more pollutions that hangs in the valleys. On stagnant days, where the air isn't blowing, that stuff just hangs in the air, causing higher readings.

That's just my educated guess. Personally, I agree with you. On all my trips to Pittsburgh (family in Carnegie) I don't see where the air is bad at all. I haven't see days where "smog" is hanging in the air like you see in pics of L.A.

[Elder18]

If you read the article on the Post-Gazette it points out that the reading used for these ranking are from 2003 and that readings from 2006 are better due to emissions standards.

Quite alot of air pollution comes from coal-fired electricity plants in places like Ohio and West Virginia. A bunch of states on the east coast went to court to try and get compensation for the pollution caused by these plants. I'm not sure if they were successful or not.

I'm not sure how many coal-powered plants there are in PA, but it's possible other plants nearby are affecting the air quality in Pittsburgh.

Or maybe it's the Ghost of Steel Mills from the Past. Spooky!

[JoeP]

The numbers are skewed by a monitor near one of the few mill sites.

Having lived in other cites including Atlanta whose skyline disappears in the summer, this list is total crap.

[AlphaBravoCD]

It is ironic that Pittsburgh ends up getting this distinction year after year. I've lived in alot of other large cities and now that I've come back to Pittsburgh, I find the air quality to be better than most of the others. NOAA indicates that the overall air quality index to be above average in the southwestern PA area. I haven't seen any brown haze that continually haunts the horizons of Philadelphia, Chicago, LA and industrial sections of New Jersey.

Allegheny County had 12 air pollution monitors and now has 8. The lung association bases its report on the worst monitor readings in each metro area, averaged over a three-year period.

One of the air pollution monitors is very close to US Steel's Clairton's Coke Works. It is the largest coke works plant in the entire country and located in a pollution-trapping river valley. Ironically, it is one of the few industrial polluters left in our region and one of the worst. This consistently puts Pittsburgh back up into the worst rankings in air pollution. Perhaps if our county would obtain grants to help alleviate this problem (scrubbers and new technology which could help eliminate much of the Coke Work's pollution), then we would improve the health of citizens who live close to this plant and could probably drop down to #50.

As far as I'm concerned, I have to agree with Joe P... This list is total crap.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pitt.../s_447895.html

[guylocke]

This so-called pollution isn't even CAUSED by Pittsburgh. It's run-off vapor from the coal-powered electric plants in Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. Our own coal-plants have more stringent environmental laws and scrubbers. This came from my father who locally deals with these industries and steel and he claims it's a known problem and that Pittsburgh itself actually causes very little pollution as our biggest enterprises are no longer "dirty" industry (aka healthcare, robotics, financing, academia).

This is so rich. Someone explain to me how a city that keeps losing population and has fewer and fewer cars on the road, fewer people to pollute, a declining bus service, no cabs (something people endlessly point out), and fewer dirty industries than ever (compared to other major US cities), can be accurately ranked as number 2???? Have these people never been to LA, NYC, Chicago or Phily? Some mornings are downright DISGUSTING. I've never seen a morning like that in Pittsburgh.