Allegheny County is increasing air quality monitoring after an explosion at a U.S. Steel plant south of Pittsburgh killed two people and injured more than 10 others. The county announced Thursday that mobile air units from the state and Carnegie Mellon University will be stationed in the Mon Valley.
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One surprise is owning a dogWhy many Americans are rethinking alcohol, according to a new Gallup pollOusted FDA vaccine chief Vinay Prasad is returning to the agencyRetiring and relocating? Take a holistic approachMelania Trump exige que Hunter Biden se retracte de declaraciones"obscenas" sobre EpsteinEl próximo juicio o sentencia de Harvey Weinstein podría ocurrir este otoñoViaje de Putin a Alaska es su primero a Occidente desde que empezó la guerra en UcraniaThe Clairton Coke Works, a U.S. Steel coking plant, is seen Monday, Aug 11, 2025, in Clairton, Penn. The Clairton Coke Works, a U.S. Steel coking plant, is seen Tuesday, Aug 12, 2025, in Clairton, Penn. The Clairton Coke Works, a U.S. Steel coking plant, is seen Monday, Aug 11, 2025, in Clairton, Penn. The Clairton Coke Works, a U.S. Steel coking plant, is seen Monday, Aug 11, 2025, in Clairton, Penn. The Clairton Coke Works, a U.S. Steel coking plant, is seen Tuesday, Aug 12, 2025, in Clairton, Penn. The Clairton Coke Works, a U.S. Steel coking plant, is seen Tuesday, Aug 12, 2025, in Clairton, Penn. and injured more than 10 others announced Thursday that it is stepping up air quality monitoring in the area of the sprawling facility that has a troubled environmental record. The Allegheny County Health Department announced that mobile air units provided by the state and Carnegie Mellon University will be stationed in the Mon Valley where the plant is Thursday and Friday. The county said these measures are part of its ongoing investigation into Monday’s explosion at Clairton Coke Works. The county said the measures go “well beyond the normal and rigorous regulatory air quality monitoring” and will assess parts of the valley for different types of pollutants such as volatile organic compounds, PM2.5 pollutants and sulfur dioxide. After Monday’s blast, the county health department initially told residents within 1 mile of the plant to remain indoors and close all windows and doors. The department lifted the advisory after its monitors didn’t detect levels of soot or sulfur dioxide above federal standards.Smoke from Canadian wildfires brings unhealthy air to large swaths of the MidwestDr. Deborah Gentile, the medical director of Community Partners in Asthma Care, called the mobile units an “excellent move for the county” because the general public “has no idea what is going on at the facility.”“The current regulatory monitors are in fixed locations, and many residents live in closer proximity to the plant than these stationary monitors,” she said. “Having monitors in additional locations will help identify if there are any exceedances of the criteria pollutants. So this is good news.” The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office also confirmed Thursday that the second person who died in the blast was Steven Menefee, 52, of Clairton. Earlier, the county medical examiner’s office identified one of the dead as Timothy Quinn, 39.said Tuesday the company is working closely with local, state and federal authorities. He would not speculate about the cause of the explosion. The massive plant along the Monongahela River in Clairton converts coal to coke, a key component in the steelmaking process. The facility is considered the largest coking operation in North America and is one of four major To make coke, coal is baked in special ovens for hours at high temperatures to remove impurities that could otherwise weaken steel. The process creates what is known as coke gas — a lethal mix of methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. The plant has a long history of environmental problems, especially fouling the air in communities nearby the sprawling plant. In 2018, a Christmas Eve fire damaged pollution-control equipment and led to repeated releases of sulfur dioxide, according to a subsequent lawsuit. The fire prompted Allegheny County to warn residents to limit outdoor activities. Residents said it was hard to breathe for weeks afterward and that the air felt acidic and smelled like rotten eggs. U.S. Steellast year with an agreement to spend $19.5 million in equipment upgrades and $5 million on local clean air efforts and programs. The concerns about air quality also come as the federal Environmental Protection Agency moves to postpone new hazardous air pollution standards for coke plants, like Clairton. Matthew Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project, a public health advocacy group in Pittsburgh, said the regulations were deemed to be almost insignificant to operational costs and would have helped protect the public with air quality monitoring. The regulation would have required — like is already required at refineries all over the United States — fence-line monitoring for hazardous air pollutants at the Clairton plant, Mehalik said. That information would have been “incredibly useful” when the explosion happened on Monday, Mehalik said. Gentile, who studied asthma levels after the 2018 fire and found twice as many patients sought medical treatment, said the fenceline data, a measure of air pollution at the property line of a manufacturing site, would have helped with the latest blast. “If fenceline monitoring were in place at the time of the event and now in the aftermath, it would be providing us with valuable information on emissions during these times, which in turn would help us advise the community on their risk of adverse health effects,” she said.Melania Trump demands Hunter Biden retract ‘extremely salacious’ Epstein commentsA car accident in small-town Tennessee leads to US charges against a major Mexican drug operation
Pennsylvania David Burritt Pollution Pittsburgh General News PA State Wire Business Deborah Gentile Climate And Environment U.S. News Steven Menefee Timothy Quinn North America Matthew Mehalik Climate
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