Good news, folks: The Allegheny County Board of Health on Wednesday approved a revised air quality permit fee schedule that is expected to help beef up enforcement and compliance efforts.
GASP, residents and fellow advocates have strongly supported the proposal, which ACHD said is necessary to fully fund its local Air Quality Program.
Myriad speakers addressed the board imploring members to vote YES on the permit fee schedule, which you can read all about here.
Among those commenters was GASP Executive Director Patrick Campbell. Here's what he told the board:
Good afternoon. My name is Patrick Campbell, and I am the executive director of the Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP), a nonprofit organization working to improve our regional air quality since 1969.
This afternoon, members of this board will again be asked to vote to approve a revised permit fee schedule proposed by the Allegheny County Health Department to help finally fully fund its Air Quality Program.
GASP and myriad local nonprofit groups and residents have stated our support for the proposal, which is expected to help buoy enforcement and compliance efforts crucial to ensuring Allegheny County continues to make progress on the air quality front.
As you know, the proposal was put out to public comment, where it received an overwhelming amount of support from residents, elected officials, and environmental groups. In fact, at a recent Air Advisory Committee meeting, ACHD’s Director of Environmental Health Geoff Rabinowitz noted that more than 100 comments were received in favor of the changes. The number of comments against the proposal? Just one.
Unfortunately, that most recent meeting of the Air Advisory Committee did not result in a recommendation to this board about the fee schedule. That’s because the committee AGAIN lacked a quorum, which meant the members who bothered to show up could neither deliberate nor take formal action.
Fortunately, the reasons to vote YES on the revised fee schedule are clear. ACHD has been delegated the authority to enforce both federal and state laws and regulations pertaining to the control of air pollution in Allegheny County and the federal Clean Air Act requires that ACHD have adequate funding and personnel to carry out that authority.
The Clean Air Act also requires that ACHD’s program for Title V facilities charge fees that are sufficient to cover the cost of administering the program.
It has become abundantly clear that the funding ACHD receives from the county and commonwealth are also insufficient to cover the cost of administering the non-Title V side of ACHD’s Air Quality Program, it is entirely appropriate that the polluting facilities that require time and resources from the Air Quality Program pay fees that cover the cost of that time and those resources.
A vote to approve the revised fee schedule is a vote for clean air and a vote for an improved quality of life for residents living in front-line communities plagued by industrial pollution. A yes vote on this proposal is also a vote of confidence for the rank-and-file employees of ACHD who must be equipped with the resources they need to effectively do their jobs.
Thank you.
Editor's Note: This isn't the end of the road for the proposal. Next stop, Allegheny County Council for a final vote. GASP continues to follow this issue closely and will keep you posted.