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Appalachia
deserves the freedom to breathe.

Pollution of our air, water and soil disproportionately harms Black communities, communities of color, and other marginalized populations. Together, we can shift power from big polluters to the people, and protect everyone's human right to health, starting with Allegheny County. Join us by adding your name to the pledge to protect our Freedom To Breathe.

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ALLEGHENY COUNTY's HISTORY OF ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM & INJUSTICE 

an image of a boy holding an oxygen mask, with a factory in the background

A LEGACY OF POLLUTION
IN ALLEGHENY COUNTY

Welcome to Allegheny County, Pennsylvania’s second-most populous county after Philadelphia County. Home to over 1.2 million people, Allegheny County is the site of numerous industrial facilities, oil and gas plants, and producers.

In cities like Pittsburgh, residents breathe some of the worst air quality in the nation. In this county, residents inhale millions of pounds of toxic pollutants – including substances linked to cancer, birth defects, reproductive problems, and other health issues.

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OUR GOAL:

TO Ensure that all of Allegheny County has the freedom to breathe clean air

As a coalition, we call upon the Allegheny County Council, the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD), the Board of Health, the Air Quality Advisory Committee, and the Regulatory Subcommittee to support language changes to the Clean Air Fund (CAF) to ensure that the Air Quality Program works in the community's interest.

 

We want:

  • The community to have a voice in the decision-making process

  • Community members appointed to  advisory boards and committees

  • The Clean Air Fund dollars invested directly into impacted communities

  • Companies to comply fully with the Clean Air Act's requirements

A neighborhood with a factory in the background. In the foreground is an image of a resident.
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PROTECTING OUR RIGHT TO BREATHE

Freedom To Breathe is a community-led campaign that fights to protect residents' right to breathe clean air by fundamentally reforming the systems and decision-making structures that enable industrial facilities to have disproportionate influence over local government and to keep poisoning our communities. Here are the policy changes we are fighting for:

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New Streams of Investment for the ACHD

Fully fund the Allegheny County Health Department and its Air Quality Program.

An oil and gas facility

NO MORE
FALSE SOLUTIONS 
& PROMISES

Companies use 

greenwashing to mislead the public into believing they are doing enough to protect the environment. Call out industry's empty sustainability commitments for what they are–false solutions.

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NEW CLEAN
AIR FUND
GOALS

Develop a community-led process to create new Clean Air Fund (CAF) goals and revise the current language where it falls short.

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REGULATORY POWER BACK IN THE HANDS OF COMMUNITY

Ensure that the people of Allegheny County have a seat at the decision-making table and sufficient representation on Air Quality Program committees.

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DIRECT INVESTMENTS In THE COMMUNITY

Create a community-led grantmaking committee to ensure CAF resources go directly to impacted communities.

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NO MORE
PAY TO PLAY
FOR
POLLUTERS 

Require repeat violators to come into full compliance with local, state, and federal clean air regulations to keep operating. 

Allegheny county'S toxic 10

Check out Penn Environment's map of the 10 Allegheny County active industrial facilities with the “most toxic” air emissions in 2021 “based on the facilities’ releases of toxic substances into the air as reported to the U.S. EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI),” (Masur et al., 2023). This list does not include other contributors to this toxic situation, including the ever-expanding list of oil and gas plants and producers in the county.

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STRONG VOICES

BRAVE SPACES,

It's time to create spaces where Black and marginalized communities can share their stories and make their voices heard.

 

By amplifying each other's lived experiences, we can build a movement that truly represents the people, and shifts power away from extractive industries that have held power over us for too long.

centering community in

the fight for clean air

A woman and a child in a daycare facility

"IN MY HEART,
I CRY.
I CRY OVER WHAT THEY'VE DONE

TO US."

-Cheryl Hurt,
Clairton Resident & Grandmother

"SINCE I'VE BEEN HOME, I'VE NOTICED A DIFFERENCE.

I'VE GOTTEN SICK MORE AND HAD MORE PROBLEMS BREATHING.
 

-Chris Wilding,
Clairton Resident, Diabetic & Daughter

A woman stand on her porch, with a polluting factory in the distance behind her
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TAKE THE FREEDOM
TO BREATHE PLEDGE

DECLARE THAT HEALTH IS A HUMAN RIGHT

The people of Allegheny County's human rights are being violated every day by environmental racism at the hands of big polluters. We as a community pay the price for the industry's pollution with our health, wealth, well-being, and quality of life. Our families breathe some of the worst air in the nation.

 

Make your voice heard. Take the pledge to protect health as a human right for people today, and for future generations.

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HOPE & HEALING Are POSSIBLE

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Together We Can RECLAIM OUR POWER

We envision a future where Allegheny County is free from the harms of pollution and environmental racism—a future where clean air, water, and land are the norm, not the exception. 

 

A future where everyone has the Freedom to Breathe isn't just possible—it's necessary. 

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