Pittsburgh’s air pollution estimated to claim 3,000+ lives per year − and EPA rollbacks aren’t helping

Pittsburgh's air pollution not only led to increased deaths, but it also had other negative effects, from lowered IQ in children to adverse birth outcomes. G Fiume/Getty Images Sport via Getty Images

In October 1948, a thick haze rolled into Donora, Pennsylvania, a steel town in the Monongahela Valley, south of Pittsburgh. For five days, toxic fumes from a zinc smelter – a plant that turns zinc ore into pure zinc metal – poured out of the factory’s stacks, became trapped in the valley and thus blanketed Donora. The air was filled with sulfur oxides, heavy metal dust and airborne particulates.

Firefighters carried 60-pound oxygen tanks door to door to relieve elderly and asthmatic victims. Nurses attended to mill workers in the infirmary, laying patients on the floor as hospital beds filled to capacity. Funeral homes ran out of space. The disaster eventually claimed 20 lives and caused chronic lung disease in many more.