The City of Pittsburgh’s incorporation of climate-change projections into its stormwater-control regulations have been highlighted by the latest National Climate Assessment as an example of how a city can prepare itself for the bigger, more frequent rain storms produced by the changing climate.

The federal document cited the former steel capital for its work requiring developers of new properties covering about a quarter of an acre of land, or with impervious surfaces of about an eighth of an acre, to install various kinds of green infrastructure so that their projects don’t worsen runoff.

The city is an early adopter of stormwater rules based on the expectation of increased future rainfall, which threatens worsening floods unless new development enhances the ability of land to absorb and store water rather than just deflecting it as runoff.

The rules “require new developments to plan for projected increases in heavy rainfall under climate change rather than building to historical rainfall amounts,” according to the assessment, published on Nov. 14. It also noted that Pittsburgh committed in 2021 to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

While bigger cities like New York, Boston and Philadelphia are making “extensive” climate preparations, Pittsburgh is an example of an “innovative” approach to climate planning taken by a geographically, economically and politically diverse sampling of mid-sized cities, the climate assessment said.

“Their efforts generally receive less visibility, but the need among similarly sized cities in the [Northeast] region — to learn about best practices and lessons learned in developing and implementing climate action plans to inform their own efforts — can be significant,” the assessment said.

Pittsburgh’s existing stormwater rule was updated in April 2022 to include rainfall projections calculated two years earlier by Carnegie Mellon University and the Rand Corporation. Although the forecasts for more-likely but less-damaging storms were similar to projections from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the CMU/Rand forecast predicted even greater increases in rainfall than NOAA. 

For example, a so-called 100-year storm — that which is expected to occur only 1% of the time — is expected to dump 6.4 inches of rain on Pittsburgh in a 24-hour period, or about a sixth of what the city typically gets in a whole year, according to the CMU/Rand forecasts. That’s about two inches more than projected by NOAA, according to Kyla Prendergast, a senior environmental planner with the city.

By contrast, a more-likely “one-year storm” would mean 2.1 inches of rain fell on the city in 24 hours, similar to the federal projections.

“The rainfall depths are a bit higher than the NOAA ones, and that helps us to ensure that we’re holding developments to a higher standard, and whatever we’re building now is actually going to be able to manage the rainfall that we know we are going to be seeing in the next 10, 20, 50 years,” Prendergast said.

Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania director for the nonprofit Clean Water Action, welcomed the city’s inclusion of climate projections into its stormwater rules as a change that is much more likely to protect the city from flooding than an earlier version of the rule.

“What Pittsburgh is doing is making sure their regulations will actually work so that they reflect the reality of the climate crisis we’re in,” Arnowitt said. “If you’re writing stormwater rules, and you’re using rainfall amounts based on what happened in 1900 to 1950 before climate change really took off, you’re going to be controlling much less water than if you base it on what we expect rainfall to be like in the next 10, 20, 50 years. It makes a lot of sense.”

NOAA’s National Weather Service is working on an update of a regional estimate of precipitation frequency. The new report, called NOAA Atlas 15, will use climate-change information to “derive precipitation frequency estimates” when it is published in 2026, said NWS spokesman Michael Musher. 

NOAA said the new estimates will provide “critical information to support the design of state and local infrastructure nationwide under a changing climate.”

Climate scientists predict an increasingly warm, wet future and widespread disruption of historic weather patterns worldwide as a result of trapped greenhouse gases. The latest National Climate Assessment, the fifth in a series of the Congressionally mandated reports, said the United States has cut carbon emissions from their peak in 2007, and has done more to adapt to the effects of climate change in the last five years, but it urged much stronger action to lessen severe effects including flooding, wildfires, heat waves and sea-level rise.

In Pittsburgh, the latest rule blames more runoff for a range of ills including erosion and sedimentation, exceeding the carrying capacity of streams and sewers, increasing public costs to control stormwater, and threatening public health with the backup of raw sewage in basements.

“A comprehensive program of stormwater management, including regulation of development and activities causing accelerated runoff, is fundamental to the public health, safety and welfare,” the rule says.

To ensure that new developments lessen or at least do not increase runoff, developers can incorporate a variety of techniques such as rain gardens, green roofs and “construction wetlands” — areas that restore a landscape’s capacity to absorb rainfall, she said.

Projects that disturb at least 10,000 square feet of land or create 5,000 square feet or more of impervious surface are now required to submit their plans to the city’s stormwater permitting process, and to show that the project would not increase the amount of runoff during a rainstorm.

So far, the city has approved about 50 projects that include the new rainfall forecasts although none are yet under construction, so there’s limited evidence so far on the effectiveness of the new standard, Prendergast said.

But she argued that incorporation of the new climate projections into the development plans, and the city’s approval of them, already show that the standard is working.

The new rules will inevitably increase costs for developers, Prendergast said, but that would be less than the cost of reacting to future flooding based on outdated precipitation forecasts. There has been some pushback from developers since the rules were introduced but the pace of development hasn’t slowed, she said. The city has produced a “design manual” for developers, explaining the rule and the reasons for it.

Pittsburgh, located at the confluence of three rivers, and with many populated hillsides, is especially vulnerable to flooding, and has suffered loss of life during the worst storms. In 2011, a downpour left waters that overtopped cars and left drivers standing on their roofs or wading through chest-deep waters, Prendergast said. Four people died in that storm.

“We do have a lot of water in the city,” Prendergast said. “Historically, Pittsburgh has tried to fight against the water; we have a lot of streams that have been paved over, and turned into pipes. It worked for what we’ve seen in the past but as we move forward, we see that it’s not the most resilient approach to managing water. We’re hoping that with this code and other policies, we are going to be able to work with the water rather than against it.”

This article originally appeared in Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here.

The post Pittsburgh is a poster child for climate-conscious planning appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Pennsylvania could speed its pace cutting carbon emissions, raise new revenue and boost the state’s use of renewable fuels by completing its planned enrollment in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an agreement by 12 states to curb emissions from power plants, according to a new analysis. 

The study, published this week by energy specialists at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, and Resources for the Future, a research nonprofit, concluded that by joining RGGI, Pennsylvania would by 2030 curb emissions by 80% from 2020 levels, compared with a cut of about 50% if it stayed outside the current bloc of 11 other northeastern and mid-Atlantic states. The state has already cut emissions since 2014, largely by switching its power plants to natural gas from coal, the report said.

Participation in RGGI would also drive down the state’s use of coal and natural gas while stimulating the production of electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar, the report said, in conclusions based on modeling.

It projected that the state would increase its revenues by between $101 million and $148 million in 2030 as a result of selling RGGI’s carbon “allowances” to power generators, and that around 70% of that revenue would come from other states in the bloc buying the allowances.

And it said all the gains would be achieved with only a minor increase in retail electricity prices or even a small decline.

Under RGGI’s “cap-and-invest” design, participating states agree to set a cap on emissions from their power sectors that declines about 3% each year. Power generators must buy “allowances” at periodic auctions for each ton of carbon they will emit above the cap, with proceeds going to the states to assist in their transition to clean energy, with emissions dropping in a predictable way.

Pennsylvania formally joined RGGI in April 2022 in accordance with an executive order from former Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, issued the day after a bill to reject state membership failed in the state Senate. But Wolf’s order was followed by two lawsuits by coal and gas interests opposing the plan. The suits resulted in a court order blocking implementation of the order until the Commonwealth Court, which adjudicates disputes involving state government agencies, decides on the constitutionality of the order. That decision remains pending.

If the court rules against the challenges, and membership is approved by the new Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania would become the 12th active member of RGGI. Since other member states began issuing carbon allowances to power generators in 2008, the bloc has cut emissions by more than 50%, twice as fast as the United States as a whole, and has generated some $6 billion for state revenues, most of which has been spent on clean-energy projects, RGGI said in a statement on its website.

This week’s analysis was written in light of new drivers of world energy supply and demand, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has increased demand for Pennsylvania’s abundant supplies of natural gas, and the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which provides unprecedented government support for the development of renewable fuels.

Despite the projected benefits of RGGI membership, it would likely have little effect on the state’s upstream oil and gas industry because some three-quarters of Pennsylvania’s natural gas is exported overseas or elsewhere in the United States, rather than burned in in-state power plants, the report said.

“The main drivers of its gas demand will continue to be the demand for natural gas plant liquids, the speed of electrification in the United States, and the global demand for liquefied natural gas whether Pennsylvania joins RGGI or not,” it said.

Opponents of Wolf’s executive order, including Republican lawmakers, three Democratic state senators and coal and gas interests, argued that he did not have the authority to impose what they say is a tax rather than a fee on power generators, and that any decision to raise taxes lies with the legislature rather than the executive. They also argued that the cost for power generators to buy the allowances would be passed on to consumers, resulting in higher domestic electricity bills.

Critics from the state’s Republican caucus quoted an earlier study from Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Energy and Law Policy, which concluded that RGGI membership would result in retail electricity bills going up by 7.8% a year from 2022 to 2030.

“That translates into devastating bills for low-income residents who already spend about 15% of their household budgets on energy costs,” the GOP lawmakers said in a recent letter to Shapiro.

The critics also argue that the state’s economy would be damaged by RGGI membership because higher costs for power generators would force them to lay off workers, and would weaken the state’s energy security.

But supporters of RGGI membership have said it would benefit the environment, the economy and public health, with what the new report concluded would be little or no impact on Pennsylvanians’ utility bills. Lower power-plant emissions would curb airborne pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, resulting in fewer hospital visits and a cut in the number of lost work days.

Under its latest Climate Action Plan, published in 2021, Pennsylvania aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26% from 2005 levels by 2025, and by 80% by 2050—targets that environmentalists say would be easier to meet as a RGGI member. 

RGGI membership would also boost Pennsylvania’s economy by $2 billion, and create 30,000 jobs if revenue from selling allowances is spent on clean-energy projects, proponents say.

David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, an advocacy group that supports Pennsylvania joining RGGI, said the new report endorses previous studies in finding that the state would benefit from membership. “It bolsters the growing research on this whole set of benefits,” he said.

“These studies are important because they debunk a lot of the rhetoric that opponents like to say to increase fear of the program,” Masur said. “But the facts are showing that there are a lot of benefits.”

He argued that another independent report from reputable sources makes it harder for skeptics to argue that joining RGGI would increase electricity costs for ratepayers and hurt the state’s economy.

“Kleinman and RFF, their only stake in this fight is to look at the facts, and let the facts fall where they may,” Masur said. “If RGGI happens or not, UPenn doesn’t make a windfall. They don’t have a financial dog in the fight so they can really be above the fray.”

Still, any decision to join RGGI must overcome the legal challenges that are widely expected to be decided by the state Supreme Court, which would hear appeals from whichever side loses the Commonwealth Court cases. Membership also needs approval by Gov. Shapiro, who has yet to commit on the issue, and has set up a working group of environmentalists, trade union officials and business leaders to advise him on climate policy, including the option of joining RGGI.

His office did not respond to a request for comment on the new RGGI report.

Rob Altenburg, senior director for energy and climate at the advocacy group PennFuture, said there’s no sign that the courts have decided to fast-track the RGGI cases.

“If the courts wanted to handle this expeditiously, I think we would have seen a result by now,” he said. “The [state] Supreme Court had the opportunity to expedite some of the decisions that have been appealed already, and they have declined to do that.”

Many other RGGI member states have not faced legal challenges on the grounds that the carbon allowances are an unauthorized tax because their decision to join was based on legislation, not executive action, Altenburg said.

Any eventual decision by Pennsylvania to join RGGI would be a major boost to the project because the state is an exporter of electricity, and a big emitter of carbon, he said.

“In terms of emissions, Pennsylvania is the size of all the RGGI states combined,” said Altenburg, whose group supports RGGI. “In terms of generation, we are a big state.” 

This article originally appeared in Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here.

The post New study bolsters case for PA to join Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Two environmental groups said on Thursday they intend to sue Shell Chemical Appalachia, operator of a big new petrochemical plant near Pittsburgh, for its violation of federal and state air-quality standards.

The Environmental Integrity Project and the Clean Air Council gave Shell a required 60 days to respond to their notice of intent to sue on the grounds that the company violated the federal Clean Air Act, a state plan to implement it, a Pennsylvania air-quality law and the state permits under which it is allowed to emit specific quantities of some contaminants.

Since the Shell Polymers Monaca [SPM] plant in Potter Township officially began operating on Nov. 15, it has exceeded state permit limits for volatile organic compounds [VOCs], nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide, according to records from the state Department of Environmental Protection [DEP]. It is also charged with violating state limits on flaring unwanted gases at various times between June and September. 

The plant, built to produce 1.6 million metric tons of plastic pellets per year, has received permits from the state that allow it to emit 159 tons of fine particulate matter and 522 tons of volatile organic compounds per year—amounts that would make it  the second-largest emitter of those VOCs  in the state. 

Although the plaintiffs say they are prepared to sue, they also invited Shell to meet “to discuss resolution of this matter prior to the expiration of the 60-day pre-suit notice period, “ they said in a letter.

The notice marks an escalation of action against the company, which is already subject to state notices of violation of emissions limits at the plant, and is under pressure from citizen groups to prepare residents for possible emergencies and improve its communications with them.

Among the charges under the new intent to sue is that the plant exceeded state limits on VOCs for 12-month periods ending in September, October and November. In September alone, it emitted almost as much as it is permitted for the whole 12-month period. 

“Thus, it is almost certain that Shell will continue to violate this VOC limit in each 12-month period until at least September 2023,“ the letter said. 

It noted that each day of a 12-month period in which each pollutant exceeds the state limit constitutes a separate violation with a penalty of up to $117,468 under the Clean Air Act.

“Shell has blown through permit limits in the first few months of operation, putting nearby communities in harm’s way,” said Sarah Kula, an attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project. “Shell must be held accountable under the law and take appropriate steps to prevent illegal pollution going forward.”

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since its official start of operations less than three months ago, the 386-acre plant on the bank of Ohio River about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh has prompted two notices of violation from regulators and four malfunction reports, fueling the fears of opponents that it will add to air and water pollution in a region that has endured poor air quality for decades.

Since 2012, when it was awarded some $1.6 billion in state tax credits over 25 years, the project has drawn criticism from opponents who say it will contaminate the air with VOCs and particulates while leaking the plastic pellets, called nurdles, into the river and contributing to a worldwide flood of single-use plastics that environmentalists are working to stem.

They also argue that its dependence on fracked natural gas from the nearby Marcellus Shale — one of the world’s biggest reserves — is boosting production of heat-trapping methane at a time when global  authorities, including the Biden Administration, are trying to limit rising global temperatures to avert the worst effects of climate change.

The plant uses ethane from the Marcellus Shale to “crack“ into ethylene, a building block for plastics.

On Dec. 14, the DEP issued a Notice of Violation to the plant for emitting more than the permitted quantity of volatile organic compounds for 12-month periods ending in September and October, respectively—before the plant was officially open.

A week earlier, the agency issued another violation to Shell for hiring a contractor to clear asbestos from its site — where a zinc smelter previously stood — without first informing the DEP.

Before the official start of operations, the plant drew eight notices during 2022 for air and water violations, as well as for failing to comply with a required procedure when cleaning a storage tank.

The period since the opening has also been marked by four equipment malfunctions, incidents where Shell has informed regulators, as required, that some piece of equipment has not worked properly.

The malfunctions included “excess emissions“ as a result of flaring from the plant’s ethane cracker unit on Nov. 15 and Nov. 16. Those emissions included 721 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, 2.1 tons of VOCs and 0.35 tons of nitrogen oxides, according to a letter from Shell to the DEP on Dec. 16.

Shell said its new system helped to explain the emission of VOCs above permitted levels during the 12-month periods to September and October.

VOCs are found in thousands of products such as paints, pesticides and cosmetics, and are linked to illnesses ranging from nausea and allergies to, in the case of very high exposures, damage to the central nervous system, liver and kidneys, according to health authorities.

“Several factors contributed to the additional flaring during startup, all related to the complexities of commissioning brand new systems and equipment that make up one of the largest construction projects in the country,“ Curtis Smith, a Shell spokesman, said on Tuesday. “Though flaring acts as a contingency to combust gases before they enter the atmosphere, no violation is acceptable. 

“We will continue to report out and comply with all regulations while also applying lessons learned and best practices to ensure our operations have no negative impact on people or the environment, “ he said. 

Anais Peterson, a petrochemicals campaigner for Earthworks, a nonprofit that works to prevent destruction from the extractive industries, said the plant’s performance since opening has confirmed its opponents’ fears, especially because of an orange glow that has lit up the night sky around the plant since it began operations.

“We knew it was going to be bad, given Shell’s record, but it was difficult to understand just how bad it would be until we started living in it,“ she said in an interview with Inside Climate News. “The orange glow was totally unexpected and has had a really draining impact on residents. Shell has been unresponsive.“

Controls on illumination of the night sky is one of six demands on a “to-do“ list that campaigners representing Beaver County residents and environmental groups have sent to Shell. Their demands include reducing overhead lighting, and providing shielding, filtering and energy-conserving technology, as recommended by the International Dark Sky Association.

Peterson said the night-sky glow has disturbed residents but it is unclear whether it is caused by flaring or something else. “The first time people saw it, they thought the plant was on fire, “ she said.

Other items on the campaigners’ list — which Peterson said has been sent to Shell three times — include training residents to respond safely to emergencies, immediately notifying them and government agencies of incidents using social media and local news outlets and using the best-available monitoring technology to detect VOCs and other pollutants.

The advocates also call on Shell to “address the plastic crisis“ by publicizing the effects of the plant’s product, and to “support climate action“ by using renewable energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and rejecting what they call false solutions such as blue hydrogen and carbon capture.

Smith, the Shell spokesman, said the company already meets many of the demands on the list. “Many of the suggestions within are consistent with best practices already being implemented at SPM,” he said.

At a Feb. 1 meeting of Eyes on Shell, a community group that publishes the list, Peterson said both Shell and the DEP have been more responsive to public complaints about air quality, foam on the water next to the plant and the orange glow in the night sky after members of the public reported the conditions.

“We had a really strong response; our watchdogs were immediately on top of it when that happened, “ she said at the online meeting that was attended by about 75 people. 

An audible boom in the vicinity of the plant generated public fears that Shell was responsible, Peterson said. The company later posted on its Facebook page denying responsibility but did so only after about nine hours, and after being urged by campaigners to make a statement, Peterson said.

She said the Eyes on Shell group received about 25 reports about Shell-related events, many of them prompted by flaring, during January. “It’s so clear that anything Shell or DEP does is because watchdogs are on top of it, taking pictures, sending videos, “ she said.

Matt Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project, a nonprofit that advocates for air-quality improvements in southwest Pennsylvania, said the environmental record of the Shell plant so far is regrettable but expected.

“We are off to a rough start, and sadly, a rough start was anticipated,” he said.  “Accountability actions are needed to bolster a sense of confidence that the public health and environment of people in the Ohio River Valley is being protected from harm.”

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here.

The post Advocates issue intent to sue Shell’s new petrochemical plant for emissions violations appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Carbon emissions from the power sector in a 10-county region of Southwestern Pennsylvania would be almost eliminated by 2050 under a program that increases generation with renewables, boosts storage, improves energy efficiency and uses existing nuclear capacity to meet growing demand for electricity, according to a study published this week.

A “decarbonization pathway” proposed by the study’s authors, Strategen, a clean energy consultant, and the Ohio River Valley Institute, a research group, would retire all the region’s coal-fired power plants by 2035 and most of those that burn natural gas by 2050. 

More cuts in emissions would be achieved by the “deep electrification” of transportation and buildings,  resulting in a 95% reduction from those sectors by 2050, and a cut in their natural gas consumption of more than 90% in each case. In the power sector, emissions would fall by 97% by 2050, leading to environmental benefits of $2.7 billion annually, the study said.

“A Clean Energy Pathway for Southwestern Pennsylvania” focuses on the region because of its rich reserves of coal and natural gas that have driven a long history of energy production, resulting in disproportionate impacts on human health and the natural environment. Among the 10 counties, 72% of energy produced comes from fossil fuels, while 26% is from nuclear power and only 2% is from renewables.

The study argues that adoption of a clean-energy strategy in the heavily mined and fracked region could become a model for other areas.

“A clean-energy transition is both possible and imperative for Southwestern Pennsylvania, and Appalachia more broadly,” the 37-page paper said. “As part of a larger coordinated effort, the region can pursue a path to advance the development of renewable resources, accelerated electrification, and heavy investments in energy efficiency, while shifting away from continued reliance on fossil fuels.”

Those measures would be “more consistent” with efforts to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord than those recommended by three studies last year that relied on continued use of natural gas, along with investment in carbon capture and sequestration [CCS] technology to cut emissions in the region, the paper said.

One of the earlier studies, by the Allegheny Conference Energy Task Force, assumes the retirement of coal plants by 2035 but also plans for the expansion of the natural gas industry, and investment in CCS, a strategy that would be consistent with limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, the new paper said. 

The goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit warming to 1.5 degrees by 2050. Another plan by the Roosevelt Project, a team that included Carnegie Mellon University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that a broader area of Southwestern Pennsylvania, including the 10-county area, has attributes that will be in demand during a transition to clean energy but it anticipates costly investment in CCS as well as continued reliance on fossil fuels.

The new study said a report by the Labor Energy Partnership proposes the adoption of technologies including direct air carbon capture but also includes continued investment in fossil fuels “which runs the risk of becoming stranded assets and does not achieve a net-zero pathway.”

Sean O’Leary, senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, said the report outlines a decarbonization strategy at a time when the question is no longer whether to do so, but when and how.

“The question is what route or pathway will decarbonization take?” he said during a webinar to launch the study. “There has frankly been a rush to judgment in the region. We’ve seen a variety of reports coming out that propose to do decarbonization on the back of fossil-fuel industries, primarily on the back of carbon capture and sequestration. It reminds us that we may have arrived at an answer before we actually researched the question.” 

By contrast, the proposed decarbonization pathway would be 13% less costly than any combination of natural gas and carbon capture technology, which is expensive and largely unproven, and would limit the region’s exposure to fuel-price volatility while reducing the risk of acquiring “stranded” fossil fuel assets such as natural gas wells that would no longer be economic, the paper said.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, a trade group for Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry, predicted that any cut in gas demand would raise energy costs and antagonize voters.

“While we haven’t fully reviewed this document, we do know this: Eliminating the use of clean, abundant and affordable Pennsylvania natural gas will hammer consumers, families and manufacturers with higher energy costs,” said coalition President David Callahan, in a statement. “Similar policies have been enacted in other parts of the world, which are reeling with economic pain right now as a result of natural gas supplies being interrupted. The good news is that Pennsylvania voters understand and prioritize the importance of natural gas, particularly its role in growing and sustaining our economy around the clock, improving our environment and ensuring America is energy secure.”

The study said decarbonizing the power sector would also reduce its emissions of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, which are linked to respiratory illness, cancer and premature mortality. It noted that Allegheny County, home to  Pittsburgh, has the highest cancer risk from stationary sources such as power plants of any U.S. county.

Adoption of the clean-energy pathway would also create jobs in the energy-efficiency industry, while creating jobs indirectly by helping families cut energy bills and spend on other items, it said. The combination would result in creation of an average 12,416 jobs a year by 2035 and 15,353 by 2050, it estimated, using multipliers from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Electricity created from renewable sources creates more jobs per unit of power than that from fossil fuels, the paper said, citing earlier studies by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the World Resources Institute.

“For Southwestern Pennsylvania, energy efficiency offers a compelling opportunity for significant job creation as the region transitions away from generating all of its electricity locally,” the study said. 

By retiring coal and natural gas plants, the region would free up significant transmission capacity in the PJM grid that has been used to export an energy surplus, the study said. It estimated that the capacity could then be used to import an estimated 4.4 gigawatts  of solar and 3.7 gigawatts  of wind generated elsewhere.

The selection of Southwestern Pennsylvania for a study of how to achieve a clean-energy transition is essential because it would show that even an area with a long history of resource extraction and consumption can make the switch, said Rob Altenburg, senior director for energy and climate at PennFuture, an environmental nonprofit based in Harrisburg. 

Still, several mechanisms such as an expansion of the state’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard, which requires that a percentage of  electric power sold to retail customers be derived from alternative sources such as solar or wind,  would require legislation, and that is not assured in a state where Republicans kept their Senate majority in the midterm elections, Altenburg said.

Even though the state House switched to Democratic control for the first time in 12 years, and Democrat Josh Shapiro will become governor in January, the prospects remain uncertain for legislation that would enable some climate goals, he added. 

“It’s always a challenge to move innovative legislation in Pennsylvania, but a divided legislature may create some opportunities we wouldn’t have had otherwise,” Altenburg said.

But even without legislative approval, the new governor could help cut carbon emissions through executive order by completing Pennsylvania’s entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a project in which 11 northeastern states issue carbon permits to power generators, based on a regional cap on allowances that declines over time. The state’s membership of RGGI, begun under outgoing Gov. Tom Wolf, is on hold pending court challenges.

Other possible ways of implementing the strategy include adoption of a natural gas severance tax — which was repeatedly proposed by Wolf and repeatedly blocked by the legislature over the last eight years; the adoption of a federal clean energy standard, and the use of an estimated $200 million a year in RGGI revenues to pay for local measures to aid the energy transition.

Since 2019, Pennsylvania has cut carbon emissions by 18% from their 2005 level, and has until 2025 to hit a target of 26%, set by Wolf in 2019. By 2050, Wolf’s executive order aims to reduce emissions by 80%.

Matt Mehalik, executive director of Breathe Project, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit that campaigns for improved air quality in a region that has been heavily polluted by the coal, natural gas and steel industries for decades, said the new report is the first to provide a decarbonization blueprint for the area, based on existing technologies.

He said it appears likely to result in cleaner air and fewer respiratory illnesses.

“A shale-gas strategy has resulted in a net negative overall because of health impacts, and anything that gets us off that pathway will reclaim a healthier air-shed, resulting in fewer diseases, fewer family disruptions, and ultimately a better quality of life in Southwest Pennsylvania,” he said.

To become a reality, the framework will require “leadership” from the new governor or the new legislature, but parts of it could be implemented without legislation by executive agencies such as the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, Mehalik said.

“It will require an extensive policy response, but what the Ohio River Valley Institute has done is provided a platform for meaningful policy discussion based off their quality analysis,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here.

The post Study: Decarbonization program could eliminate most emissions in Southwestern PA by 2050 appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Pittsburgh’s soil is contaminated in some areas by five toxic metals emitted by historic coking and smelting from the region’s now-diminished coal and steel industry, according to a new study by geologists at the University of Pittsburgh.

In a city with a history of air pollution so bad that a 19th-century writer for The Atlantic magazine called it “hell with the lid taken off,” the study shines a light on the legacy of more than a century of steel making in western Pennsylvania.

It found arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead and zinc in soils, especially in the eastern half of Pittsburgh, where the contaminants had likely been blown by prevailing winds, and trapped by the city’s temperature inversions which keep pollution close to the ground beneath an upper layer of warm air.

“Along with worsening air pollution…inversions may have given heavy metals from historic industrial sites a chance to settle from the air into the soil,” the university said in a press release this week.

Scientists from Carnegie Mellon University and the Allegheny County Conservation District collected samples from 56 sites, including parks and cemeteries that were away from other contamination sources such as roads, roofs or gutters. Their findings were correlated by University of Pittsburgh researchers to sources of industrial pollution, and published in July by the journal Environmental Research Communications.

The paper is believed to be the first anywhere to examine the legacy of decades of industrial pollution on soils, the authors said.

“This is the first study we know of that samples/measures background soils, maps them, and then uses source signatures to understand background patterns in soil chemistry,” they wrote in an email.

Although the study focused on legacy pollution, it’s likely that steel-industry plants such as U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works south of Pittsburgh are still contaminating soil, said Alexandra Maxim, a former Pitt graduate and now a Ph.D. candidate at Georgia Tech who led the study, and her co-author, Daniel Bain, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

“Our data cannot implicate any of the remnants of the steel industry, but the patterns we observe suggest areas around coking facilities were receiving contamination that looks like coking emissions. So modern contamination from industries operating like those responsible for the observed contamination seems likely,” they said in the email.

Still, the study did not identify any harms to human health or the natural environment. Maxim said there are too many variables, such as whether soil gets in the human mouth or whether the digestive system can separate the toxic metal, to draw any conclusions about whether the metals have negative health effects.

“This is more of a first step, where we evaluate how bad the contamination is, particularly in areas that aren’t necessarily measured that often,” she said.

Amanda Malkowski, a spokeswoman for Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, which has long dominated the industry in the region and still operates three plants there, said the company “follows local, state and national rules and guidelines that are in place for our operations.”

Although most of the contaminants were found below levels that trigger action by regulators, they may warrant soil testing by residents who grow vegetables or allow their children to play in places where they may come into contact with the soil, said Maxim.

“I don’t think people need to be scared but I think they need to be aware,” she said in a statement. “Make sure you test your soil, and be thoughtful about your gardening and your children playing in certain areas.”

Other precautionary measures include using raised beds for gardening or laying down paving stones for children to play on, Maxim said.

The only metal that exceeded a standard set by Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection was arsenic, which was found at a median reading of 13.9 milligrams per kilogram, above the DEP’s soil “action level” of 12 mg/kg. The median occurrence for lead was 99 mg/kg, well inside the official limit, while copper, zinc and cadmium were also significantly lower than the state level that requires cleanup.

Lead in soil seemed to be “strongly influenced” by secondary smelting, the study said, but it acknowledged that the metal’s previous status as a gasoline additive may account for the lead found in soil.

“Care was taken to ensure near-road environments were not sampled, avoiding hotspots of lead contamination, but we cannot rule out the potential that this historically dominant source impacted broader areas,” it said.

The peer-reviewed paper, titled “Urban soils in a historically industrial city: patterns of trace metals in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,” noted that a concentration of steelmaking and other industries along the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers likely contributed “a mix of various metals to Pittsburgh soils.”

It argued that its findings have implications for cities around the world, especially now that developments such as urban gardening and green infrastructure have the potential to disturb soil contamination, and increase exposure for humans and natural systems.

There were a wide variety of contamination sources in Pittsburgh so it’s challenging to attribute metals in the soil to specific sources, the paper said. But it identified five chemistry sources that are linked to metals in the soil: fly ash from coking; the bulk chemistry of coal; bedrock; fly ash from coal-fired power generation, and secondary lead smelting.

Together with the effects of frequent temperature inversions in the river valleys where industry was concentrated, and the prevailing winds, the industrial outputs are likely to have affected the land as well as the air, the paper said.

“This concentration of atmospheric pollutants for extended periods of time has the potential to focus and encourage deposition of this contamination on the land surface,“ it said.

The study, which collected samples in 2016 and analyzed them through 2019, was funded by the Heinz Endowments, the Henry Leighton Research Fund at the University of Pittsburgh and the National Science Foundation.

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here.

The post Toxic metals entered soil from Pittsburgh steel-industry emissions, study says appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.