GASP joined residents and fellow clean air advocates at a public hearing in Clairton Wednesday night to tell the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) that its revised coke oven regulations must do more to protect the community from emissions emanating from U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works operations.
In his testimony, GASP Executive Director Patrick Campbell would have homed in on the Mon Valley’s hydrogen sulfide (H2S) problem and encouraged health officials to take advantage of this opportunity to make meaningful changes to the revised regulations.
We said “would have” because, despite registering to speak via the ACHD website well before the deadline, GASP was not called on to testify. We get that technical glitches do happen and have reached out to ACHD to get answers and prevent such issues from happening in the future – the department’s IT department is looking into it.
“We showed up not only to provide comments on the coke oven regulations but to also support and help buoy the voices and experiences of the Mon Valley residents who have bravely spoken out at public hearings despite jeering bullies like the ones we saw in full force last night,” Patrick said. “So while it was disappointing not being able to testify, we’re glad we were able to be there to support our friends.”
So here’s what we *would* have said if GASP was provided the opportunity to comment – HUGE shoutout to our friend Mark Dixon, a local filmmaker and activist, who kindly filmed Patrick following last night’s meeting. We highly recommend you check out the trailer for his upcoming documentary, “Inversion: The Unfinished Business of Pittsburgh’s Air” here.
Stay tuned – we’ll keep you posted as the process continues and more information on the coke oven regulations becomes available.