.png)
Dr. Vann is the new Director of the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD), having started in August of this year.
We are providing light refreshments. Registration is free and limited to 40 persons. To Register, go to https://www.valleycleanair.com/ and look for "Events" in the top menu bar. Click on Events, look at November 14 on the Calendar and click on the link to register.
VCAN Board member Johnie Perryman will speak with Dr. Vann.
Time & Location
Nov 14, 2024, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Clairton Municipal Building, 551 Ravensburg Blvd, Clairton, PA 15025
About our Event
Valley Clean Air Now (VCAN) is a small, non profit based in the Mon Valley. Most of our Board members live in Clairton and Glassport within the Monongahela River Valley in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. We are a community-led movement for a better future in the Mon Valley.
Dr. Vann has agreed to listen to three of our Board members present their views about Clairton Coke Works' (CCW) toxic emissions. Our Board members know of the devastating effects of this pollution on their own health and the Mon Valley ecosystem.
In addition, law students from the University of Pittsburgh Law School's Environmental Law Clinic will then present legal arguments to Dr. Vann in support of the VCAN Board members. These legal arguments are largely based upon the need for ACHD to embrace its duties as trustee of the "public natural resources" of all of Allegheny County as set forth within our Pennsylvania Constitution.
Professor Josh Ash, Director of the E-Law Clinic, will then moderate a Question and Answer session.
The Environmental Rights Amendment
The Pennsylvania Constitution was amended in 1971 to include the following:
The people have a right to clean air, pure water and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and aesthetic values of the environment.
Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come.
As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.
Article 1, Section 27.
VCAN Board member Cindy Meckel will also speak with Dr. Vann
Specifically, our Board members and Pitt Law students will discuss:
ACHD's current "pay to pollute" enforcement policy towards CCW has never actually stopped CCW from contaminating our environment. ACHD has allowed this business to exploit and degrade our air, water and soil. As a result, many of our neighbors have become sick; many local businesses have left;
childhood asthma, adult cancer and cardio-vascular disease health data for local residents is evidence the ACHD has not protected the people of the Mon Valley; and
the ACHD has taken no action to force CCW to install fenceline monitors or to stop the excessive benzene emissions from CCW that were monitored by the ACHD and United States Environmental Protection Agency in 2021 through 2023.
Dr. Vann plans to depart at noon. Thereafter, the meeting will continue for another hour with public discussion on topics raised earlier and moderated by Professor Ash. Light refreshments and sandwiches will be served.
Visit https://www.valleycleanair.com/ to register and look for "Events" in the top menu bar. Click on Events, look at November 14 on the Calendar and click on the link to register. Tom Bailey
VCAN Secretary