Above is an interactive map of coke ovens and air monitoring stations in Allegheny county. Many monitors in the county are intentionally situated near coke oven facilities in order to capture the impact of these facilities on surrounding communities and ambient air quality.
From 2013 to 2015, five of the Pittsburgh region’s 14 PM 2.5 monitors registered pollution concentrations placing it among the worst 10% of monitors nationwide. This means that for most of the county, the concentration of PM 2.5, a type of air pollution that causes lung cancer, is worse than about 90 percent of the United States.
At the end of 2015 DTE Shenango coke works shut down. Since then, the relevant monitors near coke ovens are mostly situated around USS Clairton. The Glassport monitor, located north of Clairton, was the only monitor in the county to not meet the national ambient air quality standard for PM10, pushing the county out of attainment of the national ambient air quality standards. Clairton most likely contributed to this nonattainment. Other relevant monitors include the Clairton monitor, which can detect air emissions from Clairton during inversions or abnormal wind patterns, and the Liberty monitor, which, according to ACHD, also detects significant levels of PM 2.5, PM10, SO2, and benzene.