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A few weeks after Dr. Iulia Vann became the new director of the Allegheny County Health Department, a clean air advocate slipped her a written invitation to meet with his group in Clairton. Her answer was yes. She traveled last month to the Mon Valley town — home to the nation’s largest coking factory — to hear the community’s pleas for better air quality.
Vann, who moved to the region from North Carolina, was just shy of completing her first 100 days in the role when she arrived at the Clairton Municipal Building. She took notes and nodded frequently as Valley Clean Air Now [VCAN] board members voiced their frustrations over what they said was the county’s anemic approach to regulating industrial polluters including U.S. Steel. The firm owns Clairton Coke Works — the county’s most toxic air polluter, according to a 2021 report by PennEnvironment. Residents have long blamed the facility for the area’s high rates of cancer and lung disease, among other chronic ailments.
“You have a big job ahead of you,” Dave Meckel, a VCAN board member, told Vann.
Meckel and his wife, Cindy, live in nearby Glassport, just north of the coke works. He told Vann his house is covered in fine particulate matter. The Environmental Integrity Project — a nonprofit focused on curbing industrial pollution — set up a monitor on their property in 2021, and found high concentrations of benzene, a known carcinogen.
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