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Team 4: River Towns Among Pittsburgh's Deadliest

POSTED: 3:05 pm EST January 31, 2008
UPDATED: 6:24 pm EST January 31, 2008

The following is a transcript of a report by Team 4 investigator Jim Parsons that first aired Jan. 31, 2008, on WTAE Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.

Over the last five years, more than 62,000 people in Allegheny County died from cancer, stroke, heart and cardio diseases.

A three-month Team 4 investigation ranks the 10 deadliest local communities and shows you at least one common link.

Aleppo is a quiet borough of 1,100 people along the Ohio River, just a few miles downstream from the stately homes of Ben Avon. Both communities have among the highest rates of death for breast cancer in Allegheny County, according to statistics kept by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and analyzed by Team 4.

West Elizabeth and Braddock, both on the Monongahela River, are county leaders in rates of death for stroke and lung cancer.

And Verona and Cheswick, along the Allegheny River, lead the county in the death rate for heart disease. Cheswick residents also have one of the highest death rates in the county for cardiovascular disease.

Team 4 looked at those five causes of death and calculated which communities have the highest rates of death combined. Six of those towns have already been mentioned. The others rounding out the Top 10 are East Pittsburgh, Springdale, Elizabeth and Millvale.

All 10 are river towns, too. But what else follows the rivers? Local sources of air pollution do. These red dots (pictured at left), according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, represent the source of all criteria and particulate pollutants in Allegheny County.

Donald Bryan buried his wife of 39 years after she developed breast cancer. She was one of six cancer cases over 10 years on their dead-end street of 13 homes in Ben Avon.

"I'm not saying that Neville Island's plants caused all of this cancer, but it's more than a coincidence," said Bryan.

Ben Avon is directly across the Ohio River and usually downwind from Neville Island. But is it fair to connect the dots, to assume that because pollution sources lie along the rivers and people are dying at higher rates of cancer, stroke and heart disease here, that the two might be related?

Best-selling author Devra Davis is a world-renowned epidemiologist and professor at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health.

"How much proof do you need?" she said. "There is clear indication that a number of widely distributed industrial pollutants are associated with an increase in illness and death."

"There may be a relationship," said Allegheny County Public Health Chief Bruce Dixon. "It looks like there's a relationship. "We're looking right now at the issue of hazardous air pollutants and issues of illness and death in the Neville Island area. We're talking to the university right now, from the Graduate School of Public Health, who's interested in looking at this in much more county-wide fashion to really validate what you're telling us."

That study will be paid for in part by fines levied on industrial polluters by the Allegheny County Health Department's Air Quality program. But that program, which has been enforcing federal air quality laws for 60 years, is now in danger of being shut down.

"We're always hearing this complaint from businesses that it's too hard to get a permit," said Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato.

Onorato is studying whether Allegheny County would be better off turning over air quality enforcement to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

"I mean, I'm all for clean air, too, a clean environment," he said. "I have three kids in this town. But at the same time, I'm for jobs, and I think you have to balance the two. And I don't think one has to be at the expense of the other."

Onorato is facing a fight from supporters of the county Health Department.

"There's no question the county is going to do a much better job," said former Allegheny County Executive Jim Roddey. "They're going to study it, maintain it and control it much better locally than the state coming in once in a while to do something."

"I just think it's the immediacy of it," said Braddock Mayor John Fetterman. "It's like, if you know, like Dr. Bruce Dixon lives, he owns a home right here in North Braddock, and it's a lot more easy to contact a local official than go through some bureaucratic maze."

But Dixon complains that he needs more funds and that his air quality program has seen one-sixth of its jobs eliminated in recent years.

Rachel Filippini is the executive director of the Group Against Smog and Pollution, or GASP.

"Is the program being set up for failure by starving it of the essential resources that it needs in order to get the job done efficiently and effectively?" said Filippini

Dixon said he wonders the same thing about his own department, but he can't get an answer from county administration about the future of his program.

"We have not had a definite answer one way or the other," he said. "I mean, a lot of things are under discussion."

Team 4 investigator Jim Parsons asked Dixon, "If the answer is no, wouldn't your boss typically say no?"

"Well, probably, but sometimes people keep their political interests fairly close to the vest," said Dixon.

"Well, let me ask you this: When it comes to public health, should politics be a factor?" asked Parsons.

"It really shouldn't," said Dixon.

Team 4 repeatedly asked the Allegheny Conference on Economic Development for an interview on the story. According to published reports, the Allegheny Conference has been lobbying county officials to turn over air quality enforcement to the state. The conference rejected Team 4's requests for an interview.

In the meantime, Team 4 asked the EPA what that agency has to say about Allegheny County possibly turning its air quality program over to the state. EPA issued a statement saying, "Allegheny County Health Department's air program ... is meeting all of its commitments to EPA and is fulfilling its applicable requirements under the Clean Air Act."

But how is air quality enforced across the rest of Pennsylvania?

The state DEP handles it in all but two places, including Allegheny and Philadelphia counties, the largest and most industrial counties in Pennsylvania.

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