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Cleaner air data fuel debate on coke plant
Wednesday, October 07, 1998 By Don Hopey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The nose knows.
Since LTV closed its century-old Hazelwood coke works in February, many residents there and in nearby Greenfield, Oakland and Squirrel Hill say they are breathing easier.
Now there is proof.
A preliminary review of the air quality in Hazelwood has found significant reductions in concentrations of sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, benzene and airborne soot -- a mix of chemical compounds that contributed to the "Pittsburgh smell."
The Allegheny County Health Department's findings, released Monday, are a breath of fresh air for those who oppose a plan by LTV and Sun Co. to build a new $350 million plant in Hazelwood.
That plant would employ 200 people and produce 1.9 million tons of coke annually.
"When LTV closed, everyone I know was so thrilled because they finally were breathing fresh air instead of the stench of rotten eggs," said Andrew Mickish, 30, a software engineer living in Greenfield.
On Monday, Mickish, a Carnegie Mellon University graduate, took part in a protest against the coke plant.
He said it shouldn't come as a surprise when students living around campuses in Oakland and Squirrel Hill abandon the city after graduation.
"That area was often blanketed with the smell from the LTV coke plant," he said. "Why would they want to live in a city that smells that bad? Why would we want to start polluting again?"
The report compared the air quality data gathered by the county's Hazelwood air monitoring site for the six months from March through August to data gathered in 1995 to 1997, when the coke plant was operating.
The monitoring data show sulfur dioxide levels this year at less than half what they were in previous years.
The data also show that hydrogen sulfide levels in 1998 were a third of what they were the previous year and one-fifth of what they were in 1995.
Benzene levels in 1998 were one-tenth what they were the previous year, according to the data.
The LTV shutdown had a smaller, but still significant, impact on the amount of airborne particles, or dust.
The six-month average for all the measured compounds met annual federal health standards, and those standards were met, too, when the plant was operating.
But despite "dramatic improvements," in air quality, Roger Westman, director of the Health Department's air quality program, said the county will probably approve an installation permit for the Sun proposal.
"We don't have the ability to say no because we don't like it or we don't think it's any good," he said. "We've looked at its size and location. But the plant is entitled to locate where it wants if it can meet established rules and regulations."
Sun's proposed plant would emit the same amount of sulfur dioxide -- a component of unhealthy smog -- and soot, but lower amounts of toxic chemicals, including benzene, ammonia and ethylene.
"It would have a totally different impact on nearby communities than the old LTV coke works with less odor, hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds emitted," Westman said.
But opponents don't want to see the blue skies turn gray again or the health benefits of clean air lost.
"Hazelwood has lots of groups that would be disproportionately affected by increased air pollution from a coke plant, including blacks, the elderly, asthmatics and children," said Gunduz Caginalp, a University of Pittsburgh mathematics professor.
"A new facility will put the same amounts of various substances (into the air) as the old one and those are substances that contribute to respiratory illnesses and lung cancer."
Fred Crum, a mortgage broker who lives in Greenfield, on a hill overlooking the LTV site, questioned the wisdom of permitting a new coke plant in an area that has had recent park and trail development and where new housing is planned along Nine Mile Run.
"Who would want to run or bike or live in those houses with the smell of a coke works in the air?" Crum asked. "We're not against manufacturing or the union. We just want fresh air."
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