How Trump’s proposed cuts to the EPA could imperil the Pittsburgh region's environment and public health
By Natasha Khan and Evan Bowen-Gaddy
Oct. 2, 2017
(Photo illustration by Natasha Khan/PublicSource. Photos via flickr and Unsplash)
The Trump administration wants to gut funding for the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Environmental advocates say the deep cuts would drastically undermine protections for public health and the environment. But to what extent? And how would these cuts affect specifically Pennsylvania?
“They are flat out unprecedented,” said Elgie Holstein, senior director of strategic planning at the Environmental Defense Fund, a national environmental advocacy group. “This is the deepest across-the-board cut to the agency that any president has ever requested.”
Interactive: Sort through the environmental programs in peril
In its budget proposal issued in May, the Trump administration outlined various cuts to government agencies, including severe cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] — a record 31 percent decrease ($2.6 billion) from its previous funding of $8.25 billion. The cuts are being proposed to make way for a more than $50 billion increase to defense spending, funding for Trump’s border wall and school voucher programs, among other things.
The EPA funds in peril bolster programs that help states and cities — including Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh — comply with the federal Clean Air Act and Safe Drinking Water Act; an EPA lead-risk reduction program; a program to help states and communities cut diesel emissions; EPA’s Superfund program that helps clean up the country’s most polluted areas; and environmental research to tackle air pollution and climate change.
“It is important to note that the majority of funding Pennsylvania receives from EPA is payment to the state to administer programs on behalf of the federal government,” Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] Secretary Patrick McDonnell wrote in a letter to Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., expressing concerns over the potential impact of the cuts.
In early September, President Donald Trump made a deal with Democrats to fund the government in the short term, so Congress now has until December to iron out the budget.
“We are waiting with bated breath,” said Allegheny County Health Department Director Karen Hacker in a recent Facebook Live interview with PublicSource. She said decreases in EPA funding would most significantly affect the department’s air quality program, which helps protect public health in the county by regulating air pollutants, permitting and policing industrial pollution sources and enforcing federal air standards. The American Lung Association’s annual “State of the Air” report ranks the Pittsburgh region among the worst in the nation for certain types of pollution.
The graphic below shows programs the Trump administration has proposed to cut funding for or to eliminate completely. The graphic specifically focuses on how those cuts would affect Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Click buttons to search programs at risk
trump administration wants to
CUT BY 30%
What it is: The Trump administration has proposed a 30 percent cut to programs that help states and communities monitor and control air pollution. While air quality monitoring across most of the state is under the purview of the state DEP, in Allegheny County that responsibility lies with the county health department.
“It’s really going to have a huge impact,” Karen Hacker, director of the Allegheny County Health Department, said about the proposed cuts in a recent Facebook Live interview with PublicSource.
More than 60 percent of the department’s budget comes from federal dollars, including a chunk from the EPA for air pollution control, Hacker said. In the last five years, Allegheny County has received $5.4 million in EPA funding for its air pollution control efforts. While Hacker indicated the department could see a decrease in its workforce if proposed federal cuts go through, she said it’s premature at the moment to say for sure. In the past 70 years, Pittsburgh has made strides to improve its air quality, often with help from the EPA, according to Dr. Marsha Haley, an oncologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “You’re cutting something, but on the other end you’re going to see higher healthcare costs for the people who are going to be affected,” she said.
Money Allegheny County received for this program:: $1.4 million (2016 FY) or $5.4 million (2012-2016)
Money Pa. received for this program from 2012-2016: $39.4 million
Source: EPA FY 2018 Budget in Brief, Allegheny County Health Department, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania
trump administration wants to
CUT BY 30%
What it is: When the United States passed the Clean Water Act of 1972, it set up a grant program for states to help keep their water pollution-free. This includes point-source pollution (industrial waste and sewage) and nonpoint-source pollution (runoff from rainwater moving over polluted areas). Much of this money goes to the Pennsylvania DEP’s Bureau of Clean Water staff to enforce the basic tenets of the Clean Water Act, like monitoring water quality in rivers and streams or issuing permits to companies to monitor waste they may discharge into the water. Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania director of advocacy group Clean Water Action, said a major concern of this cut would center on the ability of the DEP to issue permits to companies in a timely fashion. “This will really cause permitting to grind to a halt, because it’s already pretty slow,” Arnowitt said. DEP Press Secretary Neil Shader wrote in an email to PublicSource that these cuts “would exacerbate an already short-staffed program.” In a letter to Pa. Sen. Bob Casey, DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell warned that slashing these water programs would mean “cutting at least 850 inspections from the 6,144 inspections that ensure that sewage plants, industrial wastewater discharges and construction sites are not threatening the water quality of Pennsylvanians downstream.”
Money Pa. received for this program in 2016: $6.7 million
Source: DEP, EPA, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania
trump administration wants to
ELIMINATE
What it is: Rainwater runoff can carry harmful chemicals into Pennsylvania’s water sources. Excess fertilizer and pesticides from farms can end up in our rivers, lakes and streams. This EPA program aims to clean up the runoff and mostly goes to county conservation districts and watershed groups to control acid mine drainage and to install agricultural buffers, according to DEP Press Secretary Neil Shader. This is particularly relevant to Southwestern Pennsylvania because of its prevalence of both active and abandoned mines, said Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania director of advocacy group Clean Water Action. “A lot of our problems right now are from nonpoint-source pollution, so if you eliminate that side of things, you’re not only not going to make progress, you’re going to go backwards,” he said. Grants to Pennsylvania in this category have totaled nearly $23 million in the last five years and the DEP estimates these grants helped to prevent 17 million pounds of nitrogen, 600,000 pounds of phosphorus and 20,000 tons of sediment from getting into our drinking water per year, according to a recent Environmental Defense Fund report. Pennsylvania may still be able to receive some support to control runoff through other water pollution control grants, but nothing as targeted as this program will exist if the budget passes as is.
Money Pa. received for this program in 2016: $4.6 million
Source: DEP, EPA, EPA FY 2018 Budget in Brief, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania
trump administration wants to
CUT BY 30%
What it is: This federal program funnels money to states under the Safe Drinking Water Act to help support public water systems. The money helps states produce regulations for safe drinking water and provides local public water facilities with technical assistance should they need it. Pennsylvania is slated to receive more than $4 million through the program in 2017 — the fifth most in the country. Because the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA) receives about 98 percent of its money directly from water customers, it won’t be affected by the proposed cuts, said Will Pickering, PWSA manager of external affairs. Pickering added that the federal government should be handing out more supporting grants for public water systems, instead of cutting them, to take the pressure off of customers. “We are — just like any other infrastructure in the United States — aging, and there is a lot of need for additional assistance,” he said. “If we’re not getting federal assistance, and we’re not getting state grants, then we’re relying on our ratepayers.”
Money Pa. received for this program in 2016: $3.7 million
Source: EPA FY 2018 Budget in Brief, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority
trump administration wants to
CUT 80%
The EPA has slowly helped to phase out vehicles and other machinery that release diesel emissions into the air. Since the EPA began issuing funds through the Diesel Emission Reduction Act (DERA) in 2008, Pennsylvania has been granted close to $12 million through the program. In Pittsburgh, DERA funding helped the city replace heavy-duty highway diesel vehicles with compressed natural gas vehicles and reduce diesel emissions from both trains and marine vehicles. Rachel Filippini, executive director of the Group Against Smog and Pollution, said Pittsburgh is still affected by pollution from diesel vehicles as many other cities are. “It would be a shame to lose a funding stream that goes directly toward reducing diesel emissions,” she said. Filippini pointed out that diesel emissions can lead to cancer. The EPA classifies diesel emissions as “likely to be carcinogenic to humans”.
Money Pa. received for program in 2016:: $978,302
Source: EPA FY 2018 Budget in Brief, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania, Group Against Smog and Pollution, American Cancer Society
trump administration wants to
ELIMINATE
What they are: If you’re a Pittsburgher who likes heading up to Lake Erie on summer weekends, your visit might get a little...well...dirtier, to put it politely. The Trump administration wants to completely kill funding for EPA’s BEACH Act grants that fund water quality and fecal monitoring for Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes. The monitoring helps reduce the risk of illness caused by intestinal bacteria from animal feces and human sewage. The monitoring helps officials determine when to post swimming advisories. “State regulations require us to monitor those,” Erie County Executive Kathy Dahlkemper told the Erie Times-News. “How are we going to abide by that mandate without the funding?”
Money Pa. received for this program in 2016: ~$200,000
Source: EPA FY 2018 Budget in Brief, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania, Erie County Executive office
trump administration wants to
CUT BY 30%
What it is: Pennsylvania has 95 Superfund sites on EPA’s National Priorities List, including three in Allegheny County: the Lindane Dump in Harrison Township in northeast Allegheny County, the Breslube-Penn, Inc. site in Coraopolis and Ohio River Park on Neville Island. A Superfund site is a piece of land that has been contaminated by hazardous waste and pollution that the EPA has deemed in need of cleanup because it creates a risk to public health or the environment. The Nationals Priorities List is a way the government determines which sites should be further investigated. Under the proposed Trump budget, overall Superfund funding would be cut by 30 percent. “[Cuts to the Superfund program] will inhibit contaminated sites from being returned to productive use for new and expanding business and industry in Pennsylvania,” said state DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell in a letter about the proposed EPA cuts.
Money Pa. received for this program from 2012-2016: $255,400*
*This number may not fully reflect how much Pennsylvania received in Superfund funding, according to the Environmental Defense Fund’s Bert Brandenburg. “The reason is that Superfund spending happens through a chain of activities, of which these grants is only one link—and the other links are not reported in the same way, so we don’t have those numbers … The grants are real, and crucial to cleanups, but not the whole story—and the rest of the story is not so easily at our fingertips.”
Source: EPA FY 2018 Budget in Brief, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania
trump administration wants to
CUT BY 30%
What it is: Brownfields are previously developed property or land (usually industrial or commercial) that are polluted or suspected to be contaminated in some way with hazardous waste. The EPA Brownfields program issues grants to communities, counties and states to assess and test for contaminants, and help to remediate the sites. Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania are especially plagued with brownfields because of the historic steel and coal industries. Many notable Pittsburgh places and buildings were once classified as brownfields, including Bakery Square, Church Brew Works, Heinz Field, PNC Park, Rivers Casino, The Waterfront, Southside Works and Station Square. According to the EPA, “cleaning up and reinvesting in these properties increases local tax bases, facilitates job growth, utilizes existing infrastructure, takes development pressures off of undeveloped, open land, and both improves and protects the environment.”
Money Pa. received for this program in 2016: $3.3 million
Source: EPA FY 2018 Budget in Brief, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania
trump administration wants to
ELIMINATE
What it is: Pennsylvania receives funds from this program to help improve water quality for the Susquehanna River and its watershed, which are affected by runoff pollution from nearby cities and farms. Although the state doesn’t touch the Chesapeake Bay, the Susquehanna River and its associated streams make up one-third of the bay’s watershed. The EPA awards millions of dollars in grants each year under this program for restoration efforts to Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, New York and Delaware. Pennsylvania uses the funds for various anti-pollution efforts including programs that help reduce the amount of agricultural chemicals flowing into the watershed’s rivers, streams and creeks and to monitor water quality.
Money Pa. received for program in 2016: $10.2 million
Source: EPA FY 2018 Budget in Brief, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania
trump administration wants to
ELIMINATE
Science to Achieve Results (STAR research grants and graduate fellowships): These grants are awarded to scientists across the country researching the public health impacts of pollution. In 2016, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University [CMU] received a $750,000 grant to test and distribute low-cost air quality monitors around Pittsburgh to study the effects of local air pollution. Albert Presto, a mechanical engineering professor at CMU and researcher on the project, said his research team had been approved by the EPA to spend all of the money awarded. However, under Trump’s proposed budget, there would be no future STAR grants.
Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Air, Climate, and Energy Solutions: In 2016, CMU was awarded a $10 million EPA grant to open a research center that would investigate air quality impacts and “a range of technology and policy scenarios for addressing our nation’s air, climate, and energy challenges, and test their potential ability to meet policy goals such as improved health outcomes and cost-effectiveness,” according to the EPA. The funding period for the center is 2016 through 2021. Presto, also a researcher at the center, said they received word in the spring that they’ll receive funding for three years of the five-year period. “We are in the dark about what happens after that.”
Source: EPA FY 2018 Budget in Brief, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University
trump administration wants to
CUT BY 50%
What it is: Western Pennsylvania has a history with leaky tanks, said Thomas Au, an environmental lawyer and conservation chair of the Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter. The EPA’s Leaky Underground Storage Tank (LUST) Trust Fund helps states avoid pollution from leaking petroleum tanks and clean up existing pollution. When a four-million gallon oil storage tank spilled into the Monongahela River in 1988, the EPA helped clean it up. The spill contaminated drinking water for one million people and killed wildlife along the river. Au said this tragedy partly led to the growth of the LUST trust fund and prevention programs that the current budget draft intends to trim. Pittsburgh could be particularly affected by the loss of this program due to the large number of mines in the area, Au said. If an underground tank leaks fumes, the mines can hold and carry the contaminants underground, which can then rise into residential basements.
Money Pa. received for program in 2016: $1.1 million
Source: EPA FY 2018 Budget in Brief, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania, USASpending.gov
trump administration wants to
ELIMINATE
What it is: This program is designed to help train and certify workers to renovate older houses that have lead paint. Exposure to the chips and dust of deteriorating lead-based paint is the main source for childhood lead poisoning, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. The state ranks third in the nation for having the most housing units built before 1950 and fourth in the country for having the most housing units built before 1978, when lead paint was widely used.
Source: EPA FY 2018 Budget in Brief, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Department of Health
trump administration wants to
ELIMINATE
What it is: Pennsylvania has one of the worst radon problems in the country. About 40 percent of Pennsylvania homes have radon levels above 4 picocuries per liter, an EPA threshold that prompts action to reduce it. Radon has serious health threats, including being the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. The proposed Trump budget eliminates an EPA program designed to build new homes and schools with radon-reducing features and to assist homeowners, real estate professionals and schools in testing for radon.
Money Pa. received for program from 2012-2016:: $2.3 million
Source: EPA FY 2018 Budget in Brief, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania
trump administration wants to
ELIMINATE
What it is: The EPA designed this program to help the five most air-polluted areas in the country address particle pollution (Allegheny County was tied for fifth in particulate matter per cubic meter pollution in 2016). “It’s like [the program] was designed for us,” said Rachel Filippini, executive director of the Pittsburgh-based Group Against Smog and Pollution. Pittsburgh’s air has a high concentration of particulate matter, which Filippini compared to soot, or simply, the material that goes into the air when anything burns or combusts. This kind of air pollution can enter your bloodstream and cause health problems, such as heart attacks and strokes. In 2011, the EPA provided about $2.9 million to the Allegheny County Health Department to replace an existing exhaust tower at the U.S. Steel Clairton Coke Works facility with a new, low-emissions quench tower, with the goal of reducing particle pollution. If these grants go on the chopping block, “We would directly lose out,” Filippini said.
Money Pa. received for program in 2016:: $0*
*This grant is given rarely, and only to the top five most-polluted areas in the country. While Allegheny County remained in the top five in 2016, it received no grant. The last Targeted Airshed grant Allegheny County received was in fiscal year 2010, when the EPA granted the county health department $2.9 million.
Source: DEP, EPA EPA FY 2018 Budget in Brief, Environmental Defense Fund’s report State of Risk: Pennsylvania
Abigail Lind fact-checked this story.
Natasha Khan is PublicSource's interactives & design editor. She can be reached at nkhan@publicsource.org or on Twitter @khantasha. Evan Bowen-Gaddy is a freelance journalist and former PublicSource intern. He can be reached at evanbg994@gmail.com or on Twitter @evanbowengaddy.
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