Category: default || By jt3y

I came through Elrama and West Elizabeth the other night, and even if I hadn't seen the old, familiar landmarks along the road, my nose knew exactly where I was.

It's the worst smell I have ever smelt, and whoa, lawdy, mama, it was powerful that night --- acrid, like burning plastic, with a chemical "tang" that stings the eyes and nose. Imagine a pile of styrofoam cups is on fire, and then toss in some chlorine bleach --- that might approximate the effect.

As far as I can tell, it comes from the old Hercules (now Eastman) chemical plant, just north of Floreffe in Jefferson Hills.

I used to drive that stretch of 837 several times a week when I worked down in "Little Worshington," and I never got used to it. If I was heading north, I'd take a big gulp of air while passing the notorious Ashland Oil depot (looking for any leaks as I passed), and try not to inhale again until I saw the Martin's Furniture warehouse.

The stench is especially pungent at this time of year, when the temperatures and the relative humidity levels both hit the high 80s, and winding up the windows of your car is no help at all: The odor seeps right through, literally scalding the insides of your eyes and nose until you get near the Elizabeth Bridge and finally blow the last clinging remnants from you.

Luckily, you're soon in Clairton, where the sooty, sulfurous smoke of the coke works is almost a comfort: Mmm ... it's just coke gas.

Now, I'm not some wacko environmentalist --- I realize that if it weren't for petrochemicals, you wouldn't be reading the Almanac right now, because we wouldn't have plastics for many of the parts that go into a modern computer.

(OK, if you want to get technical, the West Elizabeth plant doesn't make "plastics" --- it makes resins used in adhesives and glues. But let's go with my plastics/computers analogy right now.)

My point --- and I do have one --- is that I can accept that if we want to have modern conveniences, we do need to manufacture the raw material, and that manufacturing produces by-products that we have to tolerate.

I just don't understand how (or why) anyone could live in that valley and smell that crud day in and day out, and yet there are houses directly across Route 837, within sight of the chemical plant.

If any of the folks who live down there should happen to read this, could you please tell me how you tolerate that smell? Do you get nose-ectomies? And why on Earth would you buy a house down there? Because the Eastman-nee-Hercules plant has been there as long as I can remember.

. . .

A little searching reveals that residents of that valley are monitoring the air quality. This 2004 story from the Trib by Reid Frazer reports that some are taking air samples with the help of Clean Water Action.

Another story, by Alison Heinrichs and also from the Trib, notes that five of the seven school districts surrounding the Eastman plant and other factories report higher than normal rates of asthma.

Five chemicals linked to various ailments (including leukemia) have also been found in the air in that area in higher-than-normal concentrations.

Look, I want to stress that I'm not some anti-industry kook. As a McKeesport kid who grew up in the waning years of the steel industry's glory days in the Mon-Yough area, I know that a puffing smokestack means that my neighbors are working.

And as an asthma sufferer, I'm willing to accept a little dirty air once in a while if it means a better economy for the region. (Heck, I can walk out my front door and see Irvin Works, and if I have to wash some grit off of my car every so often, well, I don't mind.)

But I don't need any fancy tests to tell me that breathing that stuff in Floreffe is bad for you --- my nose knows.

. . .

Speaking of things that stink in the Mon Valley ... this story from Bentleyville stinks bad.

A man who had 17 previous convictions for drunken driving was sentenced Monday to four to eight years in state prison for running down and killing a 15-year-old jogger in August of 2004.

Police say Armand Pistilli Jr. was traveling 72 mph in a 40-mph zone when he struck Alexzandra Loos near Bentworth High School. Just a month earlier, he'd caused a multi-vehicle accident on I-79 near Canonsburg.

Terri Johnson's story in the Observer-Reporter has more detail. Pistilli's attorney called Loos' death an "accident," and was sharply corrected by the judge: "This is a crime. This is not an accident."

Seventeen prior convictions? Anyone can make a mistake, but 17 times? Eight years in prison isn't enough.

And it's too bad they can't also lock up his idiot friends and family members who kept giving this guy a car after his first and second DUI arrests.

Oh, I know, they'd say he needed his car to get to work.

Yes, and the Loos family needs their daughter back, too.

. . .

To Do This Weekend: Sorry if this Almanac seems a little bit heavy. Here's something on the lighter side: St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, 220 Eighth Ave., Downtown, will hold a chicken barbecue from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dinners come with your choice of two sides. Call (412) 664-9379. ... If you missed that one, then get out to North Huntingdon on Sunday, where Stewartsville Lions Club is selling chicken barbecue from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Norwin Towne Square. Call (412) 751-4308. ... Barbecue goes well with country music (and as John Kerry might not have said, "who amongst us does not love country music?"), and Dallas Marks is playing two local gigs --- tonight at Bootsie's, 699 O'Neil Boulevard, (412) 672-1120; and Saturday night at Kanczes City Saloon, 915 Duquesne Boulevard, Duquesne, (412) 466-9666.