noisepunk

Lots of people ask me why I’m a Steelers/Penguins/Pirates fan if I live in Philly? If I wasn’t born in Pittsburgh, and if I’ve never “lived” there, aren’t I just being a contrary asshole? Perhaps. But I did spend 3 months every summer at my grandparents’ house in Donora, PA, 24 miles south-east of Pittsburgh. If you want to bust out the calculator, I’ll save you the trouble – I spent 25% of my childhood in Donora – hometown of Stan Musial and both Ken Griffey and his son. ‘Soda’ was called ‘pop’, and ‘youse guys’ was ‘yinz.’ There was a great ice cream joint at the bottom of the hill that had a kick-ass turbocharged Ms. Pacman that I dropped many quarters in trying to break my last record. We used to play tennis at the courts at Ringgold High (Joe Montana’s alma mater). On the way home we’d buy Swedish fish and baseball cards at Chub’s. Once in a while we’d get real lucky and someone would take us to Kennywood. Most of the time you’d probably find us playing croquet or four square or hide and seek or ‘truth or dare’ in the alley. Once a week I’d get dragged to church for Sunday mass, despite my desperate protestations.

Anyway, I reminisce not to bore you to death, but to point out that Donora’s been in the news the last couple of weeks. Here’s a bit from the NY Times:

Smog was not unusual in Donora, a town of 14,000 then that was home to the American Steel & Wire Company and the Donora Zinc Works plants — both run by the United States Steel Company — that sat along the river and employed 5,000 people.

But this was different. The thick, yellowish, acrid smog was the result of an unusual weather inversion — a pocket of warm, stagnant air — that sat over the valley for five days.

Underneath what was essentially a lid on the valley were sulfuric acid, nitrogen dioxide and other poisonous gases, including fluorine, that would normally rise into the atmosphere. Most researchers blame the zinc plant, which had long been a source of complaints and was responsible for the denuding of almost all vegetation within a half mile of the plant.

The mills were closed before my time there, and I had never heard anything about this until last week when I stumbled onto a story while browsing teh internets.

Explore: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Fluoridation, PHMC Doc Heritage, donorasmog.com.