A big package of funds will go to projects in Newark, Trenton, Jersey City, Hoboken, and more towns suffering from archaic pipes and processing plants. The announcement was made at a refurbished treatment plant in Moorestown where 3-million gallons of water are pulled daily from a contaminated underground aquifer and purified to meet drinking water standards.
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Dawn Bancroft, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor after entering the U.S. Capitol last year, has won a Doylestown Borough primary.
Uncertified results from the Bucks County Board of Elections show Dawn Bancroft beat Danielle Labrake in the race for borough committeewoman in the second district. Bancroft got 101 votes, and Labrake received 90, according to current results from the county.
Dawn Bancroft
Bancroft, who owns Bucks Elite Fitness (formerly Cross Fit Sine-Pari), pleaded guilty last year to federal misdemeanor charges after she entered the U.S. Capitol during the Capitol riot. Bancroft told the FBI last year that she entered the U.S. Capitol during the riot through a broken window and estimated she was inside the building for about 30 seconds.
PHILADELPHIA (May 17, 2022) – The U.S. Steel Corporation will pay a $1.5 million penalty and make extensive improvements at its steel production facility in Braddock, Pennsylvania, as part of a settlement announced today with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) for longstanding air pollution violations.
The consent decree addresses numerous Clean Air Act violations dating back to 2016 at the steelmaking facility known as Edgar Thomson Works, which occupies about 250 acres and employs about 900 workers. The one-mile radius around the facility is an area of potential environmental justice concern, exceeding the state average for the percentage of low-income populations and for minority populations.
“EPA is committed to protecting air quality in communities by ensuring companies follow the rules to protect public health,” said EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Adam Ortiz. “Too often we find that residents in closest proximity to contaminated lands are impacted by environmental injustice, suffering cumulative health impacts and economic distress. Settlements like this serve notice to companies that they must follow the law to keep workers and neighbors healthy and safe.”
“Everyone has the right to clean air and the Allegheny County Health Department continues to work to ensure that right for all residents,” said ACHD Director Dr. Debra Bogen, Director of the Allegheny County Health Department. “This settlement is another step toward that goal in Braddock and surrounding communities, many of which are designated environmental justice communities. We are pleased that a large portion of the Health Department’s share of the civil penalty will directly benefit Braddock and other Mon Valley communities that experience a disproportionate share of the environmental impact of the pollution this consent decree concerns.”
Under the settlement, U.S. Steel is required to make numerous improvements in training, monitoring, and work practices to increase compliance and timely response to air pollution. Additionally, the company is tasked with conducting studies on potential improvements to its pollution control systems.
The primary pollutant of concern is particulate matter, including PM 2.5. Particulate matter contains microscopic solids or liquid droplets that are so small that they can be inhaled and cause serious health problems. Some particles less than 10 micrometers in diameter can get deep into your lungs and some may even get into your bloodstream. Particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM2.5) pose the greatest risk to health, including susceptibility to respiratory diseases, including acute respiratory distress, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and lung cancer.
Although the Pittsburgh area – which includes Braddock – continues to be plagued by air quality issues that face many metropolitan areas, the ACHD announced in April that for the second year in a row, Allegheny County has met federal air quality standards for PM2.5 at the eight air quality monitors that it monitors around the city.
The settlement announced today also includes a supplemental environmental project solely credited against ACHD’s share of the penalty in which U.S. Steel would provide funding to the Allegheny County Department of Economic Development for a specific environmental project. Specifically, U.S. Steel will provide $750,000 in funding to the Allegheny County Department of Economic Development in support of the creation of a multimodal connection trail for hikers and bicyclists that links the Great Allegheny Passage in Rankin Borough to the Westmoreland Heritage Trail in Trafford Borough through the Turtle Creek Valley. The project will create another multimodal connection to communities near U.S. Steel Edgar Thomson Work, including Rankin, Braddock, North Braddock, East Pittsburgh, Turtle Creek, Wilmerding, Monroeville, Pitcairn, and Trafford, North Versailles, East McKeesport and Wall.
ACHD, the co-plaintiff with EPA, is the local governmental entity charged with enforcement of Allegheny County’s air pollution control regulations. ACHD has participated fully in the collection of evidence, and the negotiation of the consent decree.
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Leading Pennsylvania Republican Jake Corman has made a major endorsement on his way out.
Pennsylvania State Sen. Jake Corman (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
By Eric Heyl, Patch Staff
HARRISBURG, PA — State Sen. Jake Corman dropped out of the race for Pennsylvania’s Republican gubernatorial nomination Thursday and endorsed former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta ahead of Tuesday’s state primary.
“It’s time for me to step aside and support someone who can win in the fall,” Corman, of Centre County, said at a Thursday morning news conference.
Corman, 57, the Senate pro tempore, announced his candidacy in November. He said his more than two decades of experience in the General Assembly made him uniquely qualified for the governor’s office.
“Someone who comes from the Legislature, who understands the Legislature, can work with the Legislature to get good things accomplished is something that we need,” Corman said then. “I think we’re tired of sort of the gridlock and the back-and-forth between the two.”
It’s unclear how much Corman’s support of Barletta will matter.
State Senator Doug Mastriano of Franklin County has a significant lead in the race for the state’s Republican gubernatorial nomination, according to a Trafalgar Poll released this week.
A coalition of leading environmental organizations – the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, PennFuture, Clean Air Council, Environment New Jersey, and Penn Environment – submitted a 17-page legal Petition (Petition) to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urging the federal government to override the regional Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) and “promptly initiate rulemaking” necessary to protect aquatic life in the Delaware Estuary, including the federally endangered Atlantic Sturgeon that are the brink of extinction.
The Petition states that “because the DRBC is failing to discharge its duty to protect the health of the Delaware River Estuary at the expense of valuable aquatic life—including the federally endangered Atlantic Sturgeon” and because the 4 watershed states have similarly failed to carry out needed protections, “Petitioners now request of the EPA to promptly exercise its Clean Water Act Section 303(c)(4)(B) authority to prepare and publish proposed regulations setting forth a revised [Water Quality Standards] that includes a designated use for fish “propagation” and upgraded D.O. criteria to support that revised designated use.”
According to the petition, the DRBC and the watershed states have failed to recognize that the Delaware Estuary, from Trenton to the top of the Bay, is being used for maintenance and propagation of resident fish and other aquatic life; as well as for spawning and nursery habitat for anadromous fish; and have similarly failed to take action to institute water quality legal standards essential for protecting critical species such as the federally endangered Atlantic Sturgeon of the River.
According to the organizations, the Delaware River Basin Commission, and the four watershed states, have been repeatedly and formally urged to recognize these aquatic life uses, and to upgrade associated water quality protections, particularly dissolved oxygen standards.
These requests, dating back more than a decade, have failed to spark needed protective action other than additional scientific research which the organizations say is unneeded given the robust scientific data already available on the record.
