By Paul M. Klein, Allegheny County Council Member
I’m sitting in the Gold Room of the Allegheny County Courthouse on a summer night. A retired teacher tells us about his wife’s extreme asthma. She used to breathe freely but now she needs a nebulizer every night.
A 70-year-old woman steps up to describe how she wakes each day with burning eyes and shortness of breath. A man who moved to this region from Seattle in 2008 tells us that since 2018 he’s had to sleep with a respirator.
At our next meeting I know I’ll hear testimonials about the recent explosion at the Clairton Coke Works. These accounts of health struggles and fears are a part of the regular rhythm of life under a cloud of sulfur dioxide, in a county that is in the top 2% of U.S. counties for cancer risk from air pollution.
Fund air quality
I’ve served on County Council for more than nine years. We hear these voices at most meetings. My fellow council members and I listen to the stories respectfully and sympathetically. But our constituents want action, not sympathy.
That means fully-funding the Department of Health’s Air Quality Program. The program monitors and analyzes air quality data, evaluates applications for installation and operating permits from major polluters, and enforces air quality regulations.
The present dangers of industrial pollution are not just anecdotal. Although we have made progress on this front, sulfur dioxide, ozone and frequent hydrogen sulfide continue to exceed the legal limits. In April 2025, the American Lung Association gave our county a failing grade for air quality, meaning that air pollution levels exceed federal standards.
We continue to have higher than expected rates of lung cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer and non-Hodgkin Lymphoma than many other regions in the state and the country. Public health professionals have consistently cited the health impacts of poor air quality on children, the elderly and those with pre-existing respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.
The ongoing air quality challenges mean we must do more to reduce these levels and more to protect the people of the county.
I often hear a note of resignation when talking with constituents about these issues. For decades, the choice between jobs and health has been presented as a false binary in this region. It is no different now, as industry asserts that an increase in permitting fees may impede their ability to hire. But with age-old stories come timeless lessons; we can learn from the experiences of others who lived in regions rife with industrial pollution.
Industrial poisoning
In a 2013 TED Talk, Margaret Heffernan shares the story of Gayla Benefield in Libby, Montana, the location of a vermiculite mine operated by W.R. Grace Company. Gayla was a meter reader for a local utility company in Libby.
As she traveled through the neighborhoods for her job, she noticed that a growing number of the town’s residents were housebound and anchored to an oxygen machine. She learned many people in this town were dealing with a range of respiratory diseases: lung cancer, asbestosis and mesothelioma.
When she asked residents if they thought the respiratory issues were related to the plant’s operations, people began avoiding her. W.R. Grace was the major employer in Libby, and if you wanted a job with benefits and a decent salary, you shouldn’t make a fuss.
What she suspected was eventually confirmed by medical studies. In 2009 the federal government concluded that Libby, Montana, had suffered “the worst case of industrial poisoning of a whole community in American history.” Many people, including Gayla’s dad, mother and brother, eventually died of asbestos-related illnesses. Margaret Heffernan explained the community’s failure to acknowledge the problem as willful blindness: choosing not to know.
We must acknowledge the danger our region faces and take meaningful action to protect it. County Council is considering a proposal to increase permitting fees on the primary polluters in the county.
These permitting fees would help close the $1.8-million-dollar funding gap faced by the health department’s Air Quality Program. At this moment, eight of fifteen County Council members support the proposal, but it cannot pass without a supermajority of ten members.
Regulating health
Allegheny County must give our health department the resources it needs. Some people in the community and in office are hesitant to take action that may burden local industry. They are subscribing to the myth that we must choose between jobs and health. But regulation does not kill industry.
U.S. Steel has faced increased regulation throughout the 124 years they’ve operated in the region. That regulation didn’t dissuade Nippon Steel or Cleveland Cliffs in their bids to acquire U.S. Steel. The industries polluting Allegheny County are resilient enough to withstand regulation necessary to protect the health of the county’s citizens.
To do that, the county needs the work — data, analysis, permitting and enforcement — only a fully funded Air Quality Program can provide.
Paul M. Klein has been a member of Allegheny County Council since 2016, where he chairs the committee on Health and Human Services. He is also Clinical Associate Professor of Business Administration at the University of Pittsburgh. This oped was first published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Sept. 9, 2025
