ACCAN BreathCams for Metalico Pittsburgh and Riverside Concrete & Supply

Metalico Pittsburgh on Neville Island

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. (See accan.org for a history of  ACCAN’s effort to get better regulation of Shenango, which finally closed in January, 2016).

With Shenango gone, ACCAN is focusing on other polluters in the Neville Island airshed.  In 2017, ACCAN became aware that Emsworth residents were being bombarded with pollution and explosions by Metalico Pittsburgh, a metal recycling and shredding industry across the Ohio River on Neville Island.   As in the case of Shenango, an ACCAN BreatheCam was deployed in 2018 to provide 24/7 documentation of the industrial pollution from Metalico that harms our health and environment.   From 2018 to May, 2024, ACCAN, using the BreatheCam and reports from Emsworth residents, has documented more than 700 complaints that can be seen in the blog on this website.

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 and Metalico Pittsburgh.

Metalico Pittsburgh 3100 Grand Avenue Pittsburgh PA 15225 from a resident’s yard.

Smoke emissions from Metalico’s metal shredder in September, 2023 visible from a resident’s yard

• Smoke emissions, not just steam, are emitted from Metalico Pittsburgh’s automobile shredder and the smoke often crosses their property line, which is a violation of their permit..
• The odor of burning plastic and rubber from Metalico can often be smelled in Emsworth lasting for hours.The odor is more intense on hot weather days, inversion weather days, and on days when the wind is blowing across the river towards Emsworth.
• A former resident of New York City has remarked that the smell is reminiscent of the odor that permeated New York City for months after the 911 terror attack.
• Dust clouds are often generated when Metalico is loading shredded metal onto trucks and barges. That dust also often crosses the company’s property line into and across the river.  This is also a violation of their permit.
• Periodically, there are also large scrap pile fires at Metalico that blow toxic smoke and odor into communities.  One such large fire occurred on April 14, 2021 and blew smoke for over six hours into Emsworth and beyond.  Another occurred on September 16, 2023 and blew smoke into Pittsburgh and its southern neighborhoods and suburbs.

Dust from Metalico’s barge loading operations, August 2023

Smoke from the metal shredder at Metalico, September 2023

Scrap pile fire at Metalico, September 16, 2023

PlumePGH visualization and SmellPGH complaints from September 2023 fire at Metalico Pittsburgh, CREATE Lab

Riverside Concrete & Supply in Coraopolis

Background

In June 2023, ACCAN first heard about the problem with Riverside Concrete & Supply (a division of the Bryan Materials Group) from Coraopolis residents who live across the street from this concrete batch plant.  Concrete batch plants mix a combination of materials, including cement, to make concrete.  Riverside states that the materials they mix are sand, gravel, limestone and cement.  The mixture is then loaded into cement trucks.  

The neighborhood is subjected to  dust and other emissions from Riverside.  The types of emissions from the plant include cement dust, dust from the mixture of materials (particularly when it gets loaded into cement trucks), road dust, dust from aggregate piles, dust from the operation of the conveyor belt, emissions from onsite internal combustion engines and diesel exhaust from cement trucks that idle for hours, beginning as early as 5:00 a.m. every day.

This type of plant should not be located in a densely populated neighborhood that includes homes and a 40 unit Section 8 apartment complex that are directly across the street from the plant and a 200-unit senior citizen highrise that is a block away..

Residents have been complaining for years about Riverside and in early 2022 they started to increase their complaints to the Allegheny County Health Department.  Health Department inspectors did respond to the residents and started to have conversations with the company; however, nothing changed and the residents stopped hearing from the inspectors.  After the residents contacted ACCAN in June, 2023, we began to work with them on ways to get more of a response from the Health Department and better regulation of the plant. Currently the plant is not required to have an air quality permit from the Health Department.  Residents continue to submit complaints and when ACCAN members can get to the site, we also document pollution events and submit our own complaints.  Just recently, with the help of our partner, CMU’s CREATE Lab, we installed an ACCAN BreatheCam to watch Riverside 24/7. We use video from this BreatheCam to document pollution events and submit complaints to the Health Department. The camera video from this BreatheCam can be viewed on this website along with a complaint blog for Riverside which, as of May 2024, included 245 complaints.

Camera views of Riverside Concrete & Supply from the residential area across the street

Riverside Concrete & Supply  889 Pennsylvania Avenue, Coraopolis, PA  15108

Entrance to Riverside Concrete/Bryan Materials Group, Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, July 2023

Cement dust raised at Riverside Concrete/Bryan Materials Group, July 2023

Dust raised at Riverside Concrete/Bryan Materials Group, July 2023