Sooty Image: From Bad To Worse

                                        The Week In Pittsburgh

By Jeffery Fraser

Anyone in the region who last year wondered what could be worse than being ranked second only to Los Angeles among America’s sootiest cities found out this week. We are now Number 1, according to the American Lung Association’s "State of the Air: 2008" report. And while the accuracy of that ranking is a matter of debate, this is not: Being nationally recognized as the sootiest city in the nation is not a good thing.

What the ranking reflects are levels of airborne soot particles that are 2.5 microns or smaller. Our five-county region is ranked worst in the nation for its 24-hour PM 2.5 level and second worst behind LA for annual PM 2.5 level. This particulate matter is tiny bits of ash, metals, diesel exhaust, chemicals and aerosols that together is generically referred to as soot. Our gain in the rankings breaks California’s streak of 8 consecutive years as home to the nation’s sootiest region. This region’s air pollution problem is complex, in part because of its topography and the fact we’re typically downwind from dozens of high-polluting Ohio Valley coal-fired power plants. But we still do a fair job polluting ourselves. In fact, our high ranking in the ALA report is largely due to the reading of an air quality monitor in Liberty Borough, just downwind of U.S. Steel Clairton coke works. The company plans a $1 billion upgrade of the coke works that includes better air pollution control. And recent federal rules could reduce the air pollution imported from Ohio Valley power plants. That’s tomorrow, maybe. Today, we’re Number 1.

Controversy continues to simmer over the design of the memorial in Somerset County to United Flight 93, the fourth jetliner hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001 that crashed in a Shanksville field as passengers and crew struggled to retake the plane from Islamic terrorists. All 40 passengers and crew perished along with the four hijackers. Plans call for finishing the memorial for the 10th anniversary of the crash. But opponents of the memorial design want it changed, largely because it calls for a crescent of trees at its center. Crescent, Islam. Get it? They include Tom Burnett Sr., a relative of a Flight 93 passenger, and blogger Alec Rawls, who refers to the planned memorial as a “terrorist memorial mosque.” Family members of Flight 93 passengers who are okay with the memorial design last week spoke out against the noisy opposition for the first time. Patrick White, whose cousin died  on Flight 93, said the plans should not be changed, “based upon the idea that someone sees crescents everywhere." These families detailed their support for the design and their dislike for Rawls and his campaign in a letter to Congressman Tom Tancredo.

Allegheny County’s drink tax couldn’t find its way out of the newspapers last week. The latest: The 10 percent tax on alcohol served to the public is expected to earn much more than the $28 million forecast this year. Dan Onorato, after whom tavern and restaurant owners have named the tax, said the levy on alcohol is here to stay, regardless of how much more it brings in than was expected. He needs it to help pay for public transportation. Meanwhile, opposition to the tax reached a boiling point. One county councilman wants to scale it back or dump it altogether and  the proprietor of The Carlton restaurant said Onorato has essentially "declared war on us.”

The payoff for allowing slot machine casinos to open across Pennsylvania is an average of $190 in the pockets of homeowners. Tax relief totals vary among school districts based on the amount of taxable property in a district and the average income of taxpayers in a district.

Speculation that Iron City Brewing Co. may go through with the $4 million worth of needed capital improvements is raising that plans are unraveling to rescue the financially ailing 147-year-old Lawrenceville brewery, the Post-Gazette reported. In other business news, the annual report of the Hazelwood-based venture capital firm Innovation Works offers further signs of life in the Pittsburgh region’s tech sector. The firm invested 6.1 million in local tech firms, directly investing in 67 companies with direct investment – a 29 percent increase over 2006. Those firms, in turn, created 367 new jobs with an average salary of $52,888.

The Pittsburgh region holds more people with health care coverage than the majority of 15 similar regions in the country, but that ranking is beginning to slip, say researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. In 2006, 10.5% of Pittsburgh region adults did not have health care coverage, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey. That is the sixth best rate among the 15 regions the researchers looked at. But Pittsburgh had ranked either second or third from 2002 through 2004.

The seven-month run of "Bodies ... The Exhibition" ended Sunday, breaking all single-show attendance records at the Carnegie Science Center. The detailed exhibit of human bodies and body parts from China had drawn 239,600 visitors – 14 percent of which were children under the age of 18 years – with one week left in the show.

And finally, the Pittsburgh Penguins moved into the Eastern finals Sunday with a 3-2 overtime victory over the New York Rangers. Marian Hossa scored twice, including the winning goal, as the Pens took 4 of 5 games from the Rangers. The Pens will face their cross-state rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers, in the finals with the first two games to be played at the Mellon Arena.