Allegheny County Clean Air Now Camera in Emsworth, PA

Background

Allegheny County Clean Air Now (ACCAN) was founded to give a voice to those harmed by the pollution from the DTE Shenango coke works on Neville Island. ACCAN members organized community meetings, held regular meetings with the Allegheny County Health Department, testified before the Allegheny County Board of Health and the Allegheny County Council, met with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 3 Director and staff, and spoke at DTE shareholders meetings to demand accountability and regulatory compliance from the plant.

While all these efforts contributed greatly to the ACCAN Shenango campaign, the ACCAN Camera, developed in collaboration with the CMU CREATE Lab, provided 24/7 documentation of the pollution from the coke plant that regulators could not ignore.  When an EPA administrator viewed the video of the Shenango site presented during an ACCAN community meeting in 2015, he deemed the pollution “totally unacceptable.”  A month later, in December, 2015, DTE announced that the plant would shut down.

With Shenango gone, ACCAN is focusing on other polluters in the local airshed.  Emsworth residents are being bombarded with pollution and explosions from industries across the Ohio River on Neville Island.  Once again, an ACCAN Camera has been deployed to provide 24/7 documentation of the industrial pollution that harms our health and environment.

Camera views of Neville Island from Emsworth

* The town of Emsworth is located 8 miles outside of Pittsburgh and is situated on the Ohio River, directly across from Neville Island.

* All polluters are located in the main industrial area of Neville Island (see Toxic Ten Report).

• Thick cream-colored smoke, not steam, can be seen emanating from buildings on the property and from the shredding machine.
• Consistent odor of burning plastic that varies in severity and intensity throughout the day and lasting for hours.  A former resident of New York City has remarked that the smell is reminiscent of the odor that permeated the area for months after the 9-11 disaster.
• The odor and smog is more intense on hot weather days, inversion weather days, and on days when the wind is blowing across the island towards Emsworth.
• Dust clouds have been seen flying off of the piles of processed materials and the burning plastic odor is noticeable on windy days when the facility is not operating.
• Explosions, accompanied by a fireball and a massive release of smoke, occur at the shredding machine. This is believed to be caused by automobile gas tanks being shredded without properly removing all of the gasoline. The explosions happen numerous times a day and vary from mild to severe house-shaking intensity.