Danger in the Air

Presented on September 19, 2004

The Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter and the Chapter’s Clean Air Committee appreciate this opportunity to explain the necessity for community & state action for air pollution control.

Sierra Club and its 28,000 members join with these national organizations, ‘Clear the Air’ and ‘Penn Environment’, to proclaim the inherent need for change in the way that PA & this nation approach the control of dangerous air pollutants.

Pennsylvania continues to be the perpetrator and the victim. We possess a large number of coal-fired power plants with minimal controls, polluting both locally and hundreds of miles downwind. We are a component of the huge east coast mobile source corridor for vehicular transportation air pollution. Therefore, our greatest problems are with car-trucks-buses and power plant emissions. For the Allentown area, mobile sources make up about 86% of the entire cancer risk from emitted air pollution locally. We are far too polluted here in Allentown, and across Pennsylvania. The Environmental Defense ‘Scorecard’ ranks Allentown & all Lehigh County as having a lead (Pb) risk to 3700 homes. We have 4 Superfund sites here. Our county contains 312,090 people that face a cancer risk more than 100 times the goal set within the Clean Air Act. But from power plant emissions and large industrial sources, our Lehigh County scores among the worst 10% in nation for VOLATILE ORGANIC CHEMICALS (ozone smog) emissions, and the top worst 20% for NITROGEN OXIDES (ozone smog), fine particulate matter soot PM 2.5 (inhaled into lungs causing lung irritation & inflammation), and SULFUR DIOXIDE emissions (acid rain).

The "Danger in the Air" report of September 2004 chronicles the unhealthy pollution levels within our local Lehigh Valley Group's area and emphasizes that Pennsylvania ranks 4th in the entire nation for unhealthy levels of ground level ozone smog.

Of the largest of our metropolitan areas in Pennsylvania, our neighbor to the south - and upwind - Philadelphia ranked 6th overall for the number of smoggy days and exceedances of 8 hour and 1 hour ozone health standards in large metro areas in 2003. Pittsburgh ranked 20th.

Of medium sized metropolitan areas in Pennsylvania, Erie ranked 33rd overall for the number of smoggy days and exceedances of 8 hour and 1 hour ozone health standards in medium metro areas in 2003. Harrisburg, Lancaster, Scranton-Wilkes-Barre and York ranked 43rd.

Of the smallest metropolitan areas in Pennsylvania, DuBois, State College and Williamsport ranked 36th overall for the number of smoggy days and exceedances of the 8 hour and 1 hour ozone health standards in these smallest metro areas in 2003. Altoona, Chambersburg ranked 42nd. Gettysburg, Johnstown, and New Castle ranked 63rd nationally.

Most significantly, so far in 2004, the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton MSA ranked second this year nationally for the number of ozone smog days and the exceedances of the 8 hour ozone standard.

While we have successfully reduced some air pollution nationally over the last 12 years since implementation began after November 15, 1990 - the nation and Pennsylvania have far to go. We have targeted for reduction about only ¼ of all nitrogen oxide emissions - making ozone smog – here in PA. We have a significant problem yet to correct for the sake of our families' health, and all our futures.

The current Clean Air Act (CAA) law should be allowed to do its job. The Bush administration has focused on reducing the legal obligations of regulated industries rather than to protect the health of people living in Allentown, and throughout PA.

We are a nation of people that take energy for granted; we waste energy every day. Without changing lifestyle, we call on all people living in Allentown and across PA, to stop wasting energy in their homes. Turn off lights when you leave a room. Stop wasting energy in your vehicles. Turn off your gasoline engine while you visit the post office or talk to a friend. Energy conservation through first taking the easy step of NOT WASTING ENERGY will absolutely help reduce air pollution, and help the Clean Air Act to do its job of cleaning up local air pollution. It isn't just power plants and idling trucks and buses that are at fault. We all share in a measure of blame for producing air pollution personally.

That said, the Bush administration must focus on air pollution reduction for the protection of human health, and not offer both legislation and regulation that is entirely constructed to avoid a significant majority of current CAA law. The Bush administration should:

• Substantially strengthen, accelerate and finalize its proposal to cap smog and fine soot forming pollutants from power plants in the eastern U.S. to the level that will adequately protect human health.
• Designate all areas where people breathe unhealthy levels of fine particles as nonattainment areas, and then propose and finalize a strong rule to bring these areas into compliance with CAA health standards by the end of this decade, as required by the current CAA law.
• The Pennsylvania State DEP should continue to reject the Bush administration's "Clear Skies" plan, which would replace the successful Clean Air Act's power plant cleanup programs with regulations that are far weaker and favorable to regulated industries.
• PADEP should adopt a comprehensive program to reduce emissions of Nitrogen oxides (ozone smog), particulate matter (PM) fine soot, carbon dioxide and mercury.
• Additionally, Pennsylvania should reverse its rejection under Governor Ridge that would not allow PADEP the authority to promulgate pollution controls more stringent than federal minimums. We can and must do better.

Thank you.

Nancy Parks
Chair, Clean Air Committee
Pennsylvania Chapter, Sierra Club

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