The American Lung Association today dealt Pittsburgh a black eye.

The city topped the group’s annual ranking of metropolitan areas with the worst short-term fine particle pollution — the first time in its nine years that the “State of the Air” report has given a city outside California the dubious title.

Environmental officials say it’s undeserved because the association bases its ranking on one air quality monitor. Pittsburgh’s ranking is based on a monitor in Liberty, a small Mon Valley town about 16 miles from the Golden Triangle.

In the Pittsburgh area — covering Allegheny, Westmoreland, Butler, Beaver, Armstrong, Washington, Fayette and Lawrence counties — the monitor used is downwind of U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works, the nation’s largest coke plant. The company plans to invest $1.2 billion to modify the plant to lessen pollution.

That monitor accurately measures air quality only in Clairton, Liberty, Glassport, Lincoln and Port Vue, where about 25,000 people live, said Guillermo Cole, Allegheny County Health Department spokesman.

“This is what’s unfair about the ranking,” Cole said. “This is a county of 1.2 million people — 1,175,000 people throughout this county are not exposed to fine particle pollution at those levels found near Clairton.”
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