In recent weeks Pittsburgh residents witnessed a dustup between two Allegheny County agencies about how to address the illegal air pollution that continues to plague the region and make people in our communities sick.

The Allegheny County Health Department is responsible for controlling air pollution and enforcing the law against illegal polluters. The Allegheny County controller, in a recent audit report, criticized the department for treating polluters with kid gloves and failing to meet this responsibility. 

As environmental attorneys with decades of experience researching pollution problems and litigating cases against violators of clean air and clean water laws, nationally and in the Pittsburgh region, we’d like to outline the best ways to deal with polluters and stop illegal pollution.

Some basic principles are clear. Over the 45 years since the nation passed crown-jewel environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, environmental lawyers who represent regular people in communities that have been exposed to illegal pollution have learned the following things:

First, if regulators don’t impose tough financial penalties when companies repeatedly break the law, they send the message that it “pays to pollute.” Polluters quickly learn they can cut corners and make more money by breaking the law than by following it.

This is a concept we are all familiar with: If a parking ticket in Downtown Pittsburgh cost only a nickel, spaces would be filled with parking scofflaws all day long. But a $200 fine sends a very different message and results in very different behavior, because the risk of getting caught outweighs the benefit of a shorter walk to the store.

Second, local permitting agencies, such as the Allegheny County Health Department, must issue effective permits in a timely fashion. Old, expired pollution permits must be reviewed and renewed on schedule. In Pittsburgh, some of the polluting facilities reporting the highest emissions are running without current permits — and in some cases, their permits expired years ago.

But just rubberstamping outdated permits that haven’t been changed in years or even decades is a meaningless exercise. The agency must see to it that each facility’s permit reflects advances in pollution-control technology and improved knowledge of environmental and health impacts. This is the way to ratchet down pollution levels over time and actually make our air and water cleaner rather than maintain an unhealthy status quo.

Third, Allegheny County is plagued with repeat offenders when it comes to illegal air pollution. The Health Department must send a crystal-clear message that riding roughshod over our environmental laws and public-health protections is unacceptable. It is crucial for regulators to take swift and severe action through fines and injunctions against repeat offenders, and even to revoke permits from chronic bad actors.

Fourth, it is crucial that local agencies charged with enforcing public health protections increase the number of on-site inspections and ensure that the public has real-time data on emissions and compliance — laid out in ways that are easy for the public to access and understand.

These simple rules of the road make both legal sense and common sense. They are broadly understood and supported by the general public. And they are time-tested in their effectiveness and guaranteed to make our communities healthier places to live.

If the Allegheny County Health Department is serious about its commitment to rein in illegal pollution and to hold polluters accountable, these principles will ensure that it does not “pay to pollute” and damage the health of Allegheny County residents and communities.

David Masur is executive director of PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center. Josh Kratka is senior attorney for the National Environmental Law Center. Eric Schaeffer is director of the Environmental Integrity Project.

First Published: June 26, 2016, 4:00 a.m.