Pittsburgh named sootiest city in U.S.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A year after being named America’s most livable city for the second time, Pittsburgh has made the top of another list — the nation’s sootiest cities.

The American Lung Association ranking for the Pittsburgh metropolitan region comes as the city celebrates its 250th birthday and continues trying to shed its reputation as a smoky industrial town.

Allegheny County officials and others called the ranking unfair, saying the Lung Association measured only the air quality in the county’s most polluted place — the Liberty-Clairton area, downwind from U.S. Steel Corp.’s Clairton Coke Works.

“We acknowledge the area has high levels of particle pollution,” county Health Department spokesman Guillermo Cole said. “It’s the largest coke plant in the U.S. and it sits in a valley, and that makes it a real challenge to clean the air there.”

Pittsburgh overtook Los Angeles in the category that measures short-term particle pollution or soot. The Pittsburgh metro area also was a close second in year-round soot levels, and soon could pass Los Angeles in that measure, too.

It’s not that Pittsburgh got worse, but that Los Angeles got better, said Janice Nolen of the American Lung Association, which issued its report Thursday.

The ranking isn’t good news for a Rust Belt city trying to show that it’s no longer a steel town — there are no working steel mills within city limits anymore — but a vibrant metropolis with world-class high-tech, education and medical facilities.

“It doesn’t help, but I don’t think it’s anything that’s going to completely damage our image,” said Kevin Evanto, spokesman for county Executive Dan Onorato. “We also were named America’s most livable city, the only one to have that distinction twice. We have to take this in stride.”

Pittsburgh was named the nation’s most livable city last year and in 1985 by “Places Rated Almanac” and David Savageau, publisher of Places Rated Books.

The Lung Association’s ranking might reinforce the image some already have of the region, said the head of an economic development agency.