Allegheny County’s health board set the stage Wednesday for a vote by a county council committee that will consider drastically raising the cost of fees for air quality permits.
County Council’s Committee on Health and Human Services is to vote Thursday on new fee schedules for air quality permits, potentially raising thousands of dollars to help fund the operation of the Allegheny County Air Quality Program, which has a staff of about 45 employees who identify and work to remedy air quality problems.
This includes monitoring pollutants like small particles (PM 2.5), hydrogen sulfide and other pollutants that are released as byproducts of industry, such as in the creation of coke.
Air quality in the Pittsburgh metro and surrounding areas has been deemed some of the worst in the nation, despite improvements over the past few decades.
If the committee approves the new fee structure, the matter would go to the full county council for a vote.
The current cost of what are known as Title V permits is $5,000 for a new permit and $4,000 for a renewal after five years. In all, 29 companies or organizations are operating under Title V considerations, many with permits that have years-old renewal applications. Some of them include U.S. Steel, the University of Pittsburgh, Neville Chemical Co., Sun Oil and PPG Industries’ Springdale complex.
The updated fee schedule from the health board would push to $12,500 the cost of a new major use operating permit and $20,000 for a renewal permit, according to public documents. It also would raise to a maximum of $50,800 the cost of an installation permit.
If county council does not approve the new fee schedule, the fees will increase less dramatically under current rules, to $6,300 for an operating permit, $5,000 for a renewal and $9,400 for an installation permit if filing between 2026 and 2030.
That money, said Lisa Graves Marcucci, Pennsylvania coordinator of community outreach at the Environmental Integrity Project, would be funneled straight into the Air Quality Program, which, overall, would help the entire health department function at full capacity.
“We really need the health department to succeed, because that means our health succeeds,” she said. “The easiest way for that to happen is for the fees to increase.”
Environmental concerns dominated the board of health’s meeting Wednesday.
About two dozen speakers urged board members to not only approve the increased prices of permits but also to support a ban on fracking in Allegheny County and surrounding areas. This was in addition to 17 written comments submitted for consideration — 16 regarding fracking and one concerning the permits.
The meeting was the last for all board members aside from Joylett Portlock, executive director of the non-profit Sustainable Pittsburgh. The terms of the other members of the board, which has nine members when all spots are filled, have expired, and residents took the opportunity to re-establish their priorities to the board.
MacKenzie MacFarland, a research chemist for PPG and a fifth-generation resident of Allegheny County, spoke during the public comment period about volunteering with her grandmother at the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit, as a child.
As an adult, she said she watched her grandmother slowly die of leukemia.
Some studies have concluded that elevated rates of cancer and low birth rates have been linked to living near fracking sites. But still other studies conducted in this area have failed to establish correlations, potentially due to small sample size.
Comments throughout the meeting consistently mentioned the health impacts of fracking, including respiratory illness and air quality considerations.
The state Department of Environmental Protection is in charge of regulating fracking in the area — but the speakers said they hope the board of health will take a bolder stance against fracking to support public health.
“I understand the skepticism and that this may be outside of your purview,” said Ms. MacFarland. “But we have evidence that fracking causes five to seven times the risk for lymphoma in children. I was 4 years old when the first Marcellus Shale well was fracked in Pennsylvania.”
Rylee Haught, a Greenfield resident and national organizing manager of the Austin, Tex.-based political nonprofit, Un-Pac, spoke of how her stance against air pollution in the Mid-Ohio Valley and against the former administration of Donald Trump pulling out of the Paris Agreement led to the estrangement of family members and financial desperation as she racked up credit card debt to put herself through college.
“Part of the reason I moved to Pittsburgh from West Virginia, despite knowing the health risks of air pollution here, was because I was really excited about the opportunity and the political will that exists here to do better for our health and for our community,” she said. “Industry and climate disasters don’t discriminate. I urge you all to protect our futures and ban fracking.”
County council’s health and human services committee meets at 5 p.m. Thursday in the Gold Room of the County Courthouse to vote on the proposed fee schedule changes.
First Published: December 5, 2024, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: December 5, 2024, 7:53 p.m.
