New and more accurate air quality indicators for the Pittsburgh region, updated hourly and benchmarked against 14 other areas across the country, are now available from the Pittsburgh Regional Indicators Consortium.

Unlike other commonly used air-quality reporting, the new indicators measure the air pollution experienced throughout the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, rather than just at the locations that have the highest pollution levels.

The indicators show the average annual levels of ozone (smog) and PM 2.5 (soot) at all of the pollution monitors in the Pittsburgh Region.

"These new air quality indicators give a more accurate picture of the pollution levels experienced by a typical resident in each region than the measures currently used in many quality-of-life rankings," said John G. Craig Jr., president of the Pittsburgh Regional Indicators project.

As an example, Craig pointed to the rankings produced by the American Lung Association that report that Pittsburgh has the second worst air quality in the country.

"The American Lung Association's ranking of Pittsburgh is misleading because it is based on the unusually high PM 2.5 levels in Liberty Borough and Clairton, which are not representative of the air quality most people in the region experience," said Craig. "This results in some people believing that air throughout the region is dirtier than it really is, while others ignore the rankings as over-stated and assume the air quality here is better than it really is."

Continued Craig, "The new indicators we have developed fill a critical void in citizens' understanding of how much pollution they are breathing compared to other regions."

The new annual indicators take the average of the readings at all of the air pollution monitors in each region in order to estimate how much air pollution the "average resident" of each region is breathing on a given day. Then these daily measures are averaged again over the course of the year (or in the case of ozone, over the May-September ozone season) to measure the cumulative air pollution levels experienced by an average resident.

In addition to the annual averages, the new indicators also enable citizens to see the current hour's ozone and PM 2.5 levels at many locations across the region using graphics produced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's AirNow website.

"Senior citizens, individuals with breathing problems, and anyone concerned about air pollution can now easily see whether high pollution levels are affecting their part of the region," Craig said.

"The new indicators clearly show that Pittsburgh's particulate levels are not the second worst in the country," Craig said, while adding that "the readings are still not good."

Explained Craig, "Average levels of PM 2.5 pollution in Pittsburgh were the fifth worst among the top 40 regions and the second worst among our benchmark regions in 2006. That means that citizens throughout the Pittsburgh region should be concerned about PM 2.5 pollution, not just those in the Mon Valley, and they need to be concerned throughout the year, not just on certain days."

Craig pointed out that Pittsburgh ranks about average among other regions on ozone pollution levels, and that the region has seen significant improvements in ozone levels over the past several years.

Craig noted that pollution problems aren't limited to the 10-county southwestern Pennsylvania region. "The Pittsburgh Today website shows pollution levels at locations not only in southwestern Pennsylvania, but in the full twenty-two county Pittsburgh Region, including counties in Ohio and West Virginia," he said.

"The indicators show that PM 2.5 levels across the border are equally bad, and ozone levels are slightly worse, than in the 10 counties of southwestern Pennsylvania," Craig said. "That illustrates what researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and others have found -- that poor air quality here is caused by pollution sources far upwind."

The development of the new air quality indicators has been guided by an Advisory Committee that includes experts on environmental issues from the Pittsburgh Region.

Members of the Advisory Committee include: Cliff Davidson, Carnegie Mellon University, Devra Davis, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Ellen Dorsey, The Heinz Endowments, Bernard Goldstein, University of Pittsburgh, Stephen Grant, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Jason Maranche, Allegheny County Department of Health, Granger Morgan, Carnegie Mellon University and Roger Westman, Allegheny County Department of Health

The Pittsburgh Regional Indicators Consortium is an initiative to foster a more holistic and accurate understanding of the economic, political and cultural interdependency of a broadly defined metropolitan Pittsburgh region.

The initiative tracks and publishes online detailed and continuously updated statistics on key components – called "indicators" -- of the region's life: Arts, Demographics, Economy, Education, Environment, Government, Health, Safety and Transportation. A tenth topic, sustainability, will be added soon.

Founders of the Indicators project include former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and former Alcoa CEO Paul O'Neil and former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Executive Editor John Craig.

For more information, visit the Pittsburgh Regional Indicators Consortium website.

10/26/2007