Dear Fellow Breathers,
We’ve gotta couple questions for you. Have you ever:
Lamented how bad the air smelled?
Woke up and immediately checked the AQI to see if it was safe to exercise outdoors?
Wondered, “What’s it gonna take to improve our local air quality?
If you answered YES to any of those questions, we wanna encourage you to take just two minutes today to speak out in support of progress, in support of cleaner air locally.
We’re talking, of course, about a proposed Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) plan to fully fund our local Air Quality Program by increasing permitting and other fees on polluters.
The proposal, which is now in the public comment phase, came in the wake of news that the Air Quality Program was facing a nearly $2 million budget deficit. The updated fee schedule, ACHD leaders have said, is necessary to allow ACHD to fully fund the program.
The public comment period will culminate in a hearing at the West Mifflin Borough Building at 5:30 p.m. this upcoming Monday, Aug. 19, where GASP and myriad residents and fellow advocates are expected to speak out in support of the plan.
We hope you can join us in speaking out at the hearing and if you can’t (or public speaking isn’t really your thing), we encourage you to submit a written comment supporting ACHD’s plan.
Two deadlines to be aware of, though:
The deadline to sign up to speak at the hearing is 5:30 p.m. this Sunday (24-hours in advance). Here’s the sign up form. Written comments will be accepted through 11:59 p.m. Monday, Aug. 19. Those can be sent to aqcomments@alleghenycounty.us.
Need a little more background info? Some help crafting those written comments? No worries - we got you. Here are details and sample talking points.
Editor’s Note: Please feel free to reach out to our communications manager if you have any questions or concerns! Her email is amanda@gasp-pgh.org.