Notes: It's a Small World
Picture from the University of Pittsburgh
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2155742/Hell-lid-taken-The-pictures-bygone-Pittsburgh-residents-choking-clouds-smog.html#ixzz27KQ9DdOg
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2155742/Hell-lid-taken-The-pictures-bygone-Pittsburgh-residents-choking-clouds-smog.html#ixzz27KQ9DdOg
Danger: Crowds of people in Pittsburgh go about their business with a thick smog visibly filling the air and clouding the tops of surrounding buildings.
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Daylight: The smog in 1950s Pittsburgh was so thick at times that it could block out the midday sun, but for decades people were unaware of the dangers the thick clouds of coal smoke and industrial pollution posed to people's health in the U.S. city..
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Horror: The collection of Pittsburgh smog pictures has been put together by the U.S. city's university to show how bad the problem was and how laws were eventually introduced to restrict the burning of coal to tackle the dangerous problem.
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Past: The smog which engulfed Pittsburgh for decades was initially thought to be good for crops and a proud symbol of the city's industrial progress and energy.
Industry: This picture shows a factory chimney spewing out smoke in the city, adding to Pittsburgh's intense air pollution problem which was once so bad the midday sun could be blocked out [same picture from main story].
Visibility: The Pittsburgh smog hides a huge building even at close range, with the upper floors invisible and the buildings outline blurred by the combination of industrial pollution and coal fire smoke.
Life: Car exhaust fumes added to the Pittsburgh smog which was a problem in the industrialised U.S. city for decades until new laws on burning coal were introduced in the 1950s. The Liberty Tubes [also known as the Liberty Tunnel] are a pair of tunnels that allow motorists to travel between the South Hills of Pittsburgh and the downtown section of the city, through Mt. Washington.
Picture of today's Liberty Tubes in much cleaner air.
Looking from within the Liberty Tubes outward at downtown Pittsburgh. Top picture shows the before with thick smog; bottom picture shows after with smog control in April 1951.
Same view as above. Picture from 1974.
Shroud: Industrialisation brought wealth to Pittsburgh, but the resulting smog became to high a price to pay with officials eventually realising action was needed to tackle the longstanding problem.
Today's Pittsburgh area has greatly clean up its air quality. However, according to the American Lung Association’s annual report of 2012 , Pittsburgh:
For their report of the cleanest cities in the U.S., go to:
http://www.stateoftheair.org/2011/city-rankings/cleanest-cities.html
For their report of the polluted cities in the U.S., go to:
http://www.stateoftheair.org/2011/city-rankings/most-polluted-cities.html
- ranked 20 for high ozone days out of 277 metropolitan areas;
- ranked 6 for 24 hour particle pollution out of 277 metropolitan areas;
- ranked 6 for annual particle pollution out of 277 metropolitan areas.
For their report of the cleanest cities in the U.S., go to:
http://www.stateoftheair.org/2011/city-rankings/cleanest-cities.html
For their report of the polluted cities in the U.S., go to:
http://www.stateoftheair.org/2011/city-rankings/most-polluted-cities.html
The 1948 Donora Smog
In 1948, between October 26 through 31, 20 people were asphyxiated and over 7,000 were hospitalized or became ill as a result of severe air pollution in the Donora, a town of 14,000 that is about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh. The smog is not the same as today’s smog or ozone. The 1948 smog was thick with sulfar, carbon monoxide, and heavy mentals. The picture below shows that the smog was so thick that it blocked the noon sun. Streetlights would be turn on because the sky was so dark. This deadly event marked the first time the govermant and manufactures worked on air pollution for public health.
A 1994 paper by Lynne Page Snyder of the University of Pennsylvania titled, "The Death-Dealing Smog Over Donora, Pennsylvania: Industrial Air Pollution, Public Health Policy and the Politics of Expertise, 1948-1949, "describes the event and the response to the disaster and is quoted below." The paper was published in the spring issue of the journal Environmental History Review.
In 1948, between October 26 through 31, 20 people were asphyxiated and over 7,000 were hospitalized or became ill as a result of severe air pollution in the Donora, a town of 14,000 that is about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh. The smog is not the same as today’s smog or ozone. The 1948 smog was thick with sulfar, carbon monoxide, and heavy mentals. The picture below shows that the smog was so thick that it blocked the noon sun. Streetlights would be turn on because the sky was so dark. This deadly event marked the first time the govermant and manufactures worked on air pollution for public health.
A 1994 paper by Lynne Page Snyder of the University of Pennsylvania titled, "The Death-Dealing Smog Over Donora, Pennsylvania: Industrial Air Pollution, Public Health Policy and the Politics of Expertise, 1948-1949, "describes the event and the response to the disaster and is quoted below." The paper was published in the spring issue of the journal Environmental History Review.
"Pollution from the Donora Zinc Works smelting operation and other sources containing sulfur, carbon monoxide and heavy metal dusts, was trapped by weather conditions in the narrow river valley in and around Donora and neighboring Webster. Air pollution problems were recognized from the facility as early as 1918, when the plant owner paid off the legal claims for causing pollution that affected the health of nearby residents. In the 1920s, residents and farmers in Webster took legal action again against the company for loss of crops and livestock. Regular sampling of the air was begun in 1926 and stopped in 1935."
From local accounts
of the time, Ms. Snyder provided this description of the 1948 disaster. "By Friday evening [Oct. 2], local residents were crowding into nearby hospitals and dozens of calls were made to the area's eight physicians. While Fire Department volunteers administered oxygen to those unable to breathe, Board of Health member Dr. William Rongaus led an ambulance by foot through darkened streets to ferry the dead and dying to hospitals or on to a temporary morgue. On Rongaus's advice, those with chronic heart or respiratory ailments began to leave town late Friday evening, but before noon on Saturday, 11 people died. Conditions had not improved by Saturday night, and with roads congested by smog and traffic, evacuation became impossible. The company operating the Donora Zinc Works finally ordered the plant shut down at 6 a.m. Sunday morning. By mid- day Sunday, rain had dispersed the smog.
From local accounts
of the time, Ms. Snyder provided this description of the 1948 disaster. "By Friday evening [Oct. 2], local residents were crowding into nearby hospitals and dozens of calls were made to the area's eight physicians. While Fire Department volunteers administered oxygen to those unable to breathe, Board of Health member Dr. William Rongaus led an ambulance by foot through darkened streets to ferry the dead and dying to hospitals or on to a temporary morgue. On Rongaus's advice, those with chronic heart or respiratory ailments began to leave town late Friday evening, but before noon on Saturday, 11 people died. Conditions had not improved by Saturday night, and with roads congested by smog and traffic, evacuation became impossible. The company operating the Donora Zinc Works finally ordered the plant shut down at 6 a.m. Sunday morning. By mid- day Sunday, rain had dispersed the smog.
"Pittsburgh itself escaped the episode primarily because it had just begun to enforce a smoke control ordinance and was cutting back on the use of bituminous coal as a fuel source. The Donora Smog gained national attention when Walter Winchell broadcast news of the disaster on his national radio show.
"The Pennsylvania Department of Health, United Steelworkers, Donora's Borough Council and the U.S. Public Health Service all participated in the investigation of the air pollution incident. The investigation was the first time there was an organized effort to document the health impacts of air pollution in the United States. Commenting on the studies of the incident, the Monessen Daily Independent wrote that damage from air pollution from the Zinc Works was 'something no scientific investigation is necessary to prove. All you need is a pair of reasonably good eyes.'
"Before the Donora smog, neither manufacturers nor public health professionals considered air pollution an urgent issue. At the annual meeting of the Smoke Prevention Association in May 1949, a leading industrial physician and consultant to insurance companies dismissed air pollution as a threat, except 'on rare occasions [when] Mother Nature has played us false.' The studies of the Donora Smog did not fix blame and could not document levels of pollution beyond workplace limits set at the time. The Public Health Service recommended a warning system tied to weather forecasts and an air sampling system be installed to avoid future incidents. The lessons learned at Donora resulted in the passage of the 1955 Clean Air Act and began modern air pollution control efforts in the Commonwealth.
"When the Zinc Works finally closed in 1957 the Monessen Daily Independent editorialized: 'the Zinc Works may have cost the valley more jobs than it ever supplied, and the cost to the Donora-Webster area in terms of general community welfare is probably incalculable. We hope the people of the Valley, particularly those in the Donora vicinity, will not receive the announcement about the Zinc Works with hand-wringing despondency. We think there is definitely a silver lining to this cloud.'"
The Donora Smog is not the same "smog" or ozone of concern today. While today's air pollution problems do not approach the severity of the 1948 Donora Smog and are less visible to the "reasonably good" eye, Pennsylvania still has an ozone pollution problem. In 1995, air pollution is much less visible, but it is no less a threat to public health, particularly to the same people that were vulnerable to the Donora Smog - those with respiratory diseases like asthma, children, older people and people with chronic heart and lung conditions.
"The Pennsylvania Department of Health, United Steelworkers, Donora's Borough Council and the U.S. Public Health Service all participated in the investigation of the air pollution incident. The investigation was the first time there was an organized effort to document the health impacts of air pollution in the United States. Commenting on the studies of the incident, the Monessen Daily Independent wrote that damage from air pollution from the Zinc Works was 'something no scientific investigation is necessary to prove. All you need is a pair of reasonably good eyes.'
"Before the Donora smog, neither manufacturers nor public health professionals considered air pollution an urgent issue. At the annual meeting of the Smoke Prevention Association in May 1949, a leading industrial physician and consultant to insurance companies dismissed air pollution as a threat, except 'on rare occasions [when] Mother Nature has played us false.' The studies of the Donora Smog did not fix blame and could not document levels of pollution beyond workplace limits set at the time. The Public Health Service recommended a warning system tied to weather forecasts and an air sampling system be installed to avoid future incidents. The lessons learned at Donora resulted in the passage of the 1955 Clean Air Act and began modern air pollution control efforts in the Commonwealth.
"When the Zinc Works finally closed in 1957 the Monessen Daily Independent editorialized: 'the Zinc Works may have cost the valley more jobs than it ever supplied, and the cost to the Donora-Webster area in terms of general community welfare is probably incalculable. We hope the people of the Valley, particularly those in the Donora vicinity, will not receive the announcement about the Zinc Works with hand-wringing despondency. We think there is definitely a silver lining to this cloud.'"
The Donora Smog is not the same "smog" or ozone of concern today. While today's air pollution problems do not approach the severity of the 1948 Donora Smog and are less visible to the "reasonably good" eye, Pennsylvania still has an ozone pollution problem. In 1995, air pollution is much less visible, but it is no less a threat to public health, particularly to the same people that were vulnerable to the Donora Smog - those with respiratory diseases like asthma, children, older people and people with chronic heart and lung conditions.