Most often our immediate interactions with air are through our noses. Even when the skies look clean, our noses can tell there is a problem because of foul smells. How often does this happen? It happens a lot, according to the “Smell Pittsburgh” app (smellpgh.org) developed by CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University.
In fact, that all-too-familiar “rotten egg” smell — usually hydrogen sulfide (H2S) — was reported to the Smell Pittsburgh app hundreds of times in the past year. Most smelly airborne chemicals have no regulatory concentration limit, but in Allegheny County, there is a limit for hydrogen sulfide. The H2S standard is monitored by the Allegheny County Health Department and has been violated on average more than 50 times a year, over the past six years, at the Liberty Borough monitor in the Mon Valley.
Where is the enforcement? Noxious odors disrupt sleep; discourage people from spending time outdoors; can irritate the eyes, nose and throat; and generally make life extremely unpleasant. ACHD appears unwilling to aggressively investigate violations of the H2S standard or the county’s odor emissions regulation, which says that no company is allowed to let malodorous emissions leave its property. H2S is a significant emission from some facilities in the Mon Valley. The ACHD must do more to crack down on companies that let their bad odors foul the air we all must smell and breathe.
RACHEL FILIPPINI
Executive Director
Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP)
Edgewood
First Published: February 22, 2018, 5:00 a.m.
