After a catastrophic fire at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works pushed the region’s air quality from bad to worse, the community—empowered by decades of grassroots organizing—rallies to assert its right to clean air.
For generations, Pittsburgh lay shrouded in constant gloom, steel mills billowing smoke day in and day out. The steel industry may not dominate Pittsburgh anymore—most of the steel plants shut down decades ago, environmental protections were instituted, and the city was reborn economically and culturally—but Pittsburgh still has some of the worst air in the nation (and the cancer rates to prove it). Despite improvements, the remaining industrial plants chronically violate environmental regulations. To make matters worse, the region suffers from a weather pattern known as an “inversion,” which traps air—and the pollutants dumped into it—close to the ground like a foul blanket.
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