Up In The Air & Over The River

                                            The Week In Pittsburgh

By Jeffery Fraser

There’s been a shake up in the top ranks of Allegheny County’s Air Quality Program. Its chief, Roger Westman, is leaving under pressure from the county chief executive’s office, the Post-Gazette reports. No reason was given for the boot, but environmental watchdogs are worried. Chief Executive Dan Onorato has entertained thoughts of dumping the air program, criticizing it for being too sluggish in granting operating permits to industry, but not for the fact that the county has been in violation of federal Clean Air Act standards for ozone and fine particle pollution ever since the thresholds for both were last tightened in 1997.

Allegheny County is saddled with one of the most complex air pollution problems in the nation, due to its location, topography, industry and other factors. The wisdom of forcing out someone like Westman, who has been dealing with the issue for 34 years, remains to be seen. It’s not as if the program under Westman filled a trophy case with environmental victories. The high-profile air pollution report card issued by the American Lung Association last year ranked the region second-worst in the nation for particle pollution, the most dangerous of common air pollutants. And the EPA in a 2003 audit criticized the program for lax enforcement. But the challenges involved in cleaning the air are formidable. Westman’s commitment to better air seemed true and under his rule the public enjoyed fairly broad access to the decision making process.

Crossing the Monongahela River became more difficult late last week. PennDOT shut down the Birmingham Bridge to vehicles and pedestrians for an indefinite period after part of an approach ramp was found to have dropped nearly eight inches. Engineers didn’t know why it happened or what it says about the structural integrity of the bridge, a critical link to the food, drink and shops of the South Side. PennDOT says it’s spent record sums to repair the state’s bridges, including $700 million last year. Yet for all of that cash, PA still has within its borders the largest number of structurally deficient bridges in the nation – 6,000 out of 25,000 state-owned spans.

The week did deliver some good transportation news, at least for the airlines. They’re going to see cuts of 11 percent to 48 percent in landing fees at Pittsburgh International Airport. The Airport Authority said it can afford to give the airlines a break after realizing $11 million in savings by refinancing airport debt.

Engineers did solve one Pittsburgh structural mystery. In a report this week, they blamed several design and construction errors – including use of the wrong expansion joint and the wrong type of steel – for the Feb. 5, 2007 collapse of part of the loading dock floor at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

Congratulations to Edmund M. Clarke for winning the Turing Award, the Nobel Prize of computing. Dr. Clark, the FORE Systems Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, shares the award with two colleagues for developing “model checking,” a technique that enables computer hardware and software engineers to efficiently locate errors in complex system designs. No word on whether Dr. Clark will meet with retiring Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates when he visits CMU Feb. 21 in the final stop of his farewell lecture tour.

At Pitt, researchers in the School of Medicine reported that today’s most popular songs are rife with references to drug and alcohol use, not an altogether surprising revelation. A review of Billboard magazine's 279 most popular songs of 2005 revealed that 24 percent mentioned drinking; 14 percent, marijuana use; and 12 percent, other drugs. Substance use was most frequently featured in rap music, but most rarely in pop music. And country music – which ranked second in substance abuse references – tended to play up humor in drinking songs. The impact of all of this on listeners was not studied.

Also this week, the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh finished the largest capital campaign in its 113-year history and came out $11 million ahead of its goal. The campaign raised $161 million to help cover long-term improvements throughout the four-museum system. In letters, author Sara Paretsky, noted for her V. Warshawski crime-novel series, is in town Feb. 18 as part of the Drue Heinz Lectures. And Philip Gourevitch, who succeeded George Plimpton as editor of the Paris Review, arrives Feb. 27 as a Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series lecturer.

On the gaming front, it was announced that the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has armed city and county police with $500,000 to finance an all-out campaign to rid the region of unlawful gambling machines covertly operating in bars, restaurants and taverns. These are not to be confused with the gambling machines operating in slot casinos across the state (and, soon, in the $450 million Majestic Star on the North Side). Those are legal, as is the Pennsylvania Lottery, the state-run numbers operation.

Finally, give Rob Wonderling credit for wishful thinking. The Republican state Senator from Montgomery County introduced a bill to privatize retail liquor sales in Pennsylvania. It could not be determined how many before him had tried and failed to break the LCB’s grip on wine and liquor, but its been more than a few. He calls for franchising two-thirds of the 623 state stores. The bill does not, however, repeal the 18 percent Johnstown Flood Tax on alcohol sold in the state. That tax was imposed to aid the 1936 Johnstown flood recovery. Although there are few alive who remember the flood, the tax lives on and is but one of the alcohol taxes and markups restaurant and bar owners and consumers of wine and spirits have reason to gripe about.