INTRODUCTION

PITTSBURGH BROWNFIELDS
In the past fifteen years the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has implemented a number of innovative and broad programs to mitigate their brownfields and redevelop the land. This report discusses just two programs that are a part of the larger framework remediation in the city.

INDUSTRIAL HISTORY
Pittsburgh was home to the great steel industry; it was the lifeblood of the region as its largest employer and tax revenue base. As well, the steel industry was an engine of the American economy. Pittsburgh was the site, in part, because of its abundance of natural resources. Most important were the three rivers running through the city, the Allegheny, Monongehela, and the Ohio Rivers.

The Monongahela River Scene, Pittsburgh 1857. (Wikipedia.org)

There was great transportation access as a result and plenty riverside acreage for heavy industry. As a result, there is probably no city in the nation that surpasses Pittsburgh in terms of the scope of its air, water and land pollution history.

SMOKE POLLUTION
Bituminous coal provided cheap easy high-quality fuel and smoke pollution was the most visible byproduct of coal consumption. It put dirty fuel producing effluents such as carbon dioxide, mercury, and arsenic into the air that could be consumed when breathed. The city and surrounding areas were heavily mined - mining wastes littered the countryside, acid mine drainage destroyed life in streams. Hundreds of miles of mine tunnels honeycombed the land.

1896 view of Pittsburgh Point with the Monongahela River in the foreground.
(Urban Redevelopment Authority)

WATER POLLUTION
At the turn of the century, Pittsburgh had the highest typhoid fever mortality rate of any city in the nation. This was in part because of its poor sanitary facilities in working class areas, which included the disposal of sewage into the rivers from which the city drew its water supply. The combined system that carried both household wastes and storm water until recently, would overflow and discharge.

Intensive River use at the turn of the century in Pittsburgh.
(Urban Redevelopment Authority)

LAND POLLUTION
The land truly acted as the final disposal site. Much of the intense coal mine waste was cleaned up during the 1950s and 1960s. But the greatest contributor to land pollution was the disposal of the byproduct of steel-making, slag. Huge piles of slag can still be found around the region and contribute to the considerable inventory of brownfields, which raises the cost of redeveloping this land. Substantial improvements have been made over the past half-century by both purposeful action (legislation) and non-regulatory factors such as the collapse of the steel industry. Pittsburgh is also feeling the pressure from development of the greenfield sites in surrounding areas.

Slag pile beneath coal company village outside of Pittsburgh.
(Nine Mile Run Greenway Project)