Pittsburgh tops polluted city list

by cynthia yoo | May 1, 2008 at 09:39 am

1059 views | 10 Recommendations | 9 comments

Pittsburgh achieved a historic first as it surged ahead of Los Angeles in the category of "short-term particle pollution" or soot. This was the first instance of a city outside California winning the sootiest city title in an annual report by the American Lung Association.
LA is still the winner of the all-around pollution title.

Los Angeles, the country's longtime soot and smog leader, has enacted aggressive measures to tackle sources of pollution, resulting in a substantial drop in particle pollution levels, said Janice Nolen, the association's assistant vice president of national policy and advocacy.

"It's not that Pittsburgh has gotten worse; it's that Los Angeles has gotten better," Nolen said. "If the trend continues, Pittsburgh will top two lists, and LA will only be leading the nation in ozone."

Still, Los Angeles held its own in two other categories measuring year-round soot levels and smog. And statewide, 26 of California's 52 counties with air quality monitoring stations got failing grades for having either high ozone days or particle pollution days.

The following eight made it to the rather inglorious list of most polluted US cities.

The eight metropolitan areas considered to be the nation's most polluted by every measure were Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Fresno, Visalia-Porterfield and Hanford-Corcoran, all in California; Washington-Baltimore; St. Louis; and Birmingham, Ala.

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Jarrett Martineau

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 09:59 on May 1st, 2008

LA vs Pittsburgh: it's a pollution battle royale!

MichaelPgh

at 11:05 on May 1st, 2008

I've lived in both Los Angeles and Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh's entry onto the list is surprising. It's actually a fairly clean place, although the high number of "ozone action days" in the summer is somewhat disconcerting. Still, my impression is that the air in Pittsburgh is pretty good, and the air in L.A. is certainly getting better thanks to California's strict emission controls.

MichaelPgh has contributed a photo to this story.

amet123

at 11:23 on May 1st, 2008

cynthia yoo, I like this story. It's good stuff.

amet123

at 11:23 on May 1st, 2008

cynthia yoo, this rarely happens, but even though I originally thought this story was Good Stuff, I now have some questions.

Did you reveal all your sources?

I also wanted to confirm that you actually witnessed the event, or that you added information that you research on your own.

cynthia yoo

at 11:24 on May 1st, 2008

LA is the overall winner (if you can call it so) of the worst polluted cities list. And California's cities are consistently in the top list.

cynthia yoo

at 11:30 on May 1st, 2008

Hi Amet, good question. In the highlighted text you will find a link to the original AP article (FYI link here). The article cites a report by the US government agency--US Environmental Protection Agency.

Excerpt from the original article.

"The association's "State of the Air: 2008" report, being released Thursday, was based on air quality measurements reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by state and local agencies between 2004 and 2006. The study looks at three key pollution measures."

If you have any questions about NowPublic Highlight tool (which we use to excerpt portions of other articles and share them with our members), you can find further information here.

Jack-imageX

at 12:55 on May 1st, 2008

I agree with you. I've been to countries that have signed the Kyoto treaty (Russia) and the air quality is significantly worse than what we have in Pittsburgh. It's known that the Clairton Coke works is a major polluter and US Steel is investing a lot of money to clean that up. You can't clean up a coke facility overnight though so it will take some time.

I have more of a problem with the natural "pollution" from all of the tree pollen. It's practically like poison for me since I have such bad allergies.

mglazarev

at 20:02 on May 1st, 2008

OK, I can see how this could support Pittsburgh's claim as most polluted city. However, this was taken in a mall parking lot, where the dirty snow looks like an eyesore. Personally, I have either ignored or haven't noticed all the soot.

mglazarev has contributed a photo to this story.

jimmypipetti

at 23:32 on May 4th, 2008

I took this shot up on Mt. Washington in Pittsburgh, PA. I used a tripod to capture the entire city, stitching three photographs together. This is actually my first panaramic, and I'm very pleased with this photograph. I'm currently a student at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, you can contact me at jgp151@stu.aii.edu if you have any questions or comments.

jimmypipetti has contributed a photo to this story.