Environmental Pollution

Including Environmental Health

Pittsburgh Region

• The Air & Waste Management Association, Allegheny Mountain Section
  Promoting better understanding of problems in the fields of air and water pollution and waste management and providing a means for exchanging information towards resolving those problems.
• Allegheny CleanWays
  Allegheny CleanWays is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization formed in 2000 to "engage and empower people to eliminate illegal dumping and littering in Allegheny County."
• Allegheny County Environmental Air Quality Task Force
  Charged with reviewing the functions of the County’s Air Quality Program and making recommendations to improve regional air quality, the Task Force gave its recommendations in December of 2009.
• Allegheny County Health Department
  Includes a section on Environment that covers air pollution, solid waste management and public drinking water.
• Allegheny County Partnership to Reduce Diesel Pollution
  The Allegheny County Partnership to Reduce Diesel Pollution is a comprehensive campaign led by Clean Water Action and the Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP), to reduce deadly particulate emissions from all diesel sectors, including waste haulers, trucks, buses, locomotives, and marine vessels.
• The Breathe Project
  The Breathe Project is a coalition of residents, businesses, government and many other groups in southwestern Pennsylvania that are working together to clean up our air for the health of our families and economy.
• Center for Environmental Oncology
  The purpose of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute is to promote further research on the environmental causes of cancer and educate the public about environmental risk factors for cancer.
• Center for Healthy Environments & Communities, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health
  CHEC helps individuals & communities in Western Pennsylvania identify their most important environmental problems and develop action plans for more sustainable solutions for a healthy environment.
• Citizens Against Litter
  Created in 2005, Citizens Against Litter is a loosely connected group of Pittsburgh residents and merchants who are passionate about picking up litter in their neighborhoods.
• Environmental Working Group: Chromium-6 Is Widespread in US Tap Water
  Pittburgh, with .88 parts per billion (ppb), has one of the highest levels of the carcinogenic hexavalent chromium of the 35 cities tested. In 2009, California officials proposed setting a “public health goal” for hexavalent chromium in drinking water of 0.06 parts per billion to reduce cancer risk.
• GASP: Group Against Smoking and Pollution
  A citizen's group working to prevent air pollution on local, state, and national levels since its creation in 1969.
• Institute for Green Science: Introduction to Green Chemistry
  This course from Carnegie Mellon University helps students understand the notion of sustainability and how it applies to chemistry.
• Little Blue Run Fly Ash Containment Reservoir in Beaver County
  • Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Little Blue Run ash reservoir in Greene Township called hazard 6/30/2009
    "The Little Blue Run coal ash storage reservoir in Beaver County was identified Monday by federal officials as one of the 44 most hazardous in the nation, not because of any defects but because it is near where people live. Beaver County is the only community in Pennsylvania that is identified by the Environmental Protection Agency as a place where residents are potentially threatened by coal ash storage ponds similar to one that flooded a neighborhood in Tennessee last year."
• Ohio Citizen Action: WTI Incinerator
  An action group best known for its work in environment and health and a major opponent to Waste Technologies, Inc. East Liverpool, Ohio, hazardous waste incinerator on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.
• Pittsburgh Post Gazette
  • Mapping mortality
    A Post-Gazette series that examines air pollution in Western Pennsylvania
    "...the Post-Gazette's review and analysis of state Department of Health mortality statistics shows that 14,636 more people died from heart disease, respiratory disease and lung cancer in the region from 2000 through 2008 than national mortality rates for those diseases would predict. Those diseases have been linked to air pollution exposure." (Sunday, December 12, 2010)
  • The ugly side of beauty, some cosmetics can be toxic
    This July 20, 2010 article by Marylynn Uricchio reports that the European Union has banned more than 1000 chemicals from cosmetics while the U.S. has only banned 10. Check here for information on what organizations are trying to change this:
    • Safe Cosmetics
    • Skin Deep: Cosmetic Safety Database
  • Region gets an 'F' for pollution: Pittsburgh's air again ranks among worst in nation
    April 27, 2011. "In the American Lung Association's "State of the Air 2011" report released Tuesday, the Pittsburgh area ranked as the nation's third most polluted area for short-term particle pollution for the second year in a row. It ranked behind only the Bakersfield-Delano and Fresno-Madera areas of California."
• PopCity: Stamping Out Cigarette Butt Litter
  A July 8, 2009 by Caralyn Green about the toxicity of cigarette butts.
• Rockefeller University (NY) Case Study: "Evaluating Environmental Equity in Allegheny County"
  A community risk study by Theodore S. Glickman from the Program for the Human Environment (1994).
• Scenic Pittsburgh
  A local nonprofit organization committed to eradicating "visual blight", like electronic billboards.
• Southwest Pennsylvania Ozone Action Partnership
  A coalition of businesses, governments, community groups and individuals that educates the public about the dangers of ground-level ozone and encourages people to take voluntary actions to reduce their contributions to air pollution. You will find an ozone forecast on their web page.
• Stash the Trash
  The campaign to clear the city of illegal dumps is the sole project of this nonprofit. Read more in Volunteers try to lift Pittsburgh out of the dumps and Bloomfield hillside cleared of items dumped illegally.
• Superfund Sites
  • Lindane Dump Site (EPA)
    Information on this Superfund site located in Harrison Township, 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh from the Environmental Protection Agency's Hazardous Site Cleanup Division for Region 3, Pennsylvania.
  • Lindane Dump/ALSCO Park Superfund Site
    Information from AKvalley.com about the cleanup of this EPA National Priorities List site, one of the nation's most serious uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites identified for possible long-term cleanup action under the Superfund program. Located in Harrison Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
• Von Roll America (WTI)
  Von Roll America, Inc. owns and operates the WTI (Waste Technologies, Inc.) industrial waste treatment plant in East Liverpool, OH.
• Zero Waste Pittsburgh: Household Chemical Collections
  Learn what Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) is and how to dispose of it.

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Pennsylvania

• Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful
  In 2010, PA CleanWays (1990) and Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful (2003) merged to become the new Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful whose mission is empowering Pennsylvanians to make our communities clean and beautiful.
• Litterbug.org
  Pennsylvania litter resource center from the Pennsylvania Resources Council.
• PennEnvironment
  A consumer action group advocating for clean air, clean water and open spaces.
  • PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center
• Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)
  Includes information on Environmental Cleanup Programs, Recycling Programs, and Solid Waste Management Programs.
• Pennsylvania Outdoor Lighting Council (POLC)
  The Pennsylvania Outdoor Lighting Council provides advice on solving the problems of glare, light trespass and skyglow caused by light pollution. The goal of the POLC is to reduce light pollution in Pennsylvania by educating the public about the safety and nuisance problems of obtrusive lighting and by recommending actions to improve outdoor lighting.

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Web Sites

• American Lung Association: State of the Air
  Since 1999, the American Lung Association has used data from state air quality monitors to produce its annual State of the Air report on ozone and particulate pollution around the nation.
  • Allegheny County 2011
• CLU-IN: Hazardous Waste CleanUp Information Website
  Provides information about innovative treatment technologies to the Hazardous Waste community. Managed by the Technology Innovation Office of EPA.
• Collaborative on Health and the Environment
  The Collaborative on Health and the Environment's (CHE's) primary mission is to strengthen the science dialogue on environmental factors impacting human health and to facilitate collaborative efforts to address environmental health concerns.
• Environmental Working Group
  A leading content provider for public interest groups and concerned citizens who are campaigning to protect the environment. Includes studies on the safest cosmetics.
  • Skin Deep Cosmetics Database
  • Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce
    Learn what produce has the most pesticides and that you should buy organic.
• EPA: Environmental Protection Agency
  • Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), MidAtlantic Region (3)
    Serving Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia
  • Office of Air and Radiation
    Includes current news.
  • EPA: Mercury
    In the U.S., coal-fired power plants are the biggest source of mercury emissions to the air, where the concentrations are usually low and of little direct concern. When they enter the water, however, they build up in fish where they are then ingested by people.
• Household Products Database
  This database from the National Library of Medicine allows you to find out what's in common household products (automobile, home cleaning, home maintenance, personal care, pesticides, garden, hobbies and crafts) and what are the potential health effects, and other safety and handling information.
• NIEHS: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)
  NIH institute for basic research on environment-related diseases.
• Noise Pollution Clearinghouse
  a national non-profit organization which seeks to raise awareness about noise pollution and reduce it.
• Phytoremidiation
  Using trees, grasses and other plants to clean our environment. From Great Plains/Rocky Mountain Hazardous Substance Research Center at Kansas State Univeristy.
• The Scorecard
  A chemical information service provided by Green Media Toolshed to help you find chemical polluters in your community. Type in your zip code to identify the pollutants in your area.
• ZERI: Zero Emissions Research Institute
  Works to create a new paradign of sustainable industry by targeting zero gaseous, liquid and solid emissions.