Milestones: Laboratories for clean air protection

States raise the bar

Even when clean air protections have come under attack at the federal level, PIRG has advocated and won stronger limits on air pollution in states around the country, as exemplified through three alliterative campaigns in Massachusetts (to clean up the Filthy Five), Connecticut (the Sooty Six) and Pennsylvania (the Toxic Ten).

Massachusetts cleans up the ‘Filthy Five’

The Clean Air Act has saved hundreds of thousands of lives, but the act has had what PIRG advocates called a “lethal loophole”: Older, “grandfathered-in” power plants were free to emit higher amounts of soot, mercury and other pollutants, and remained one of the nation’s largest sources of health-threatening air pollution.

MASSPIRG termed five of the dirtiest power plants in Massachusetts the “Filthy Five.” In 1998, PIRG advocates set out to rein in their pollution.

After MASSPIRG Legislative Director Rob Sargent discovered an obscure law permitting anyone to petition any state agency to adopt a restriction, we filed a petition that would limit these plants’ pollution.

All eyes turned to acting-Gov. Paul Cellucci, then running for election. Weighing his odds against a PIRG-backed petition, Cellucci agreed to clean up the plants.

For two years, MASSPIRG worked to hold the state to that promise, releasing research reports, negotiating with power plants, and turning out 1,000 people at public hearings.

On April 23, 2001, we won: Massachusetts finalized the first-ever state-imposed limits on power plant emissions of mercury and carbon dioxide.

Connecticut tames the ‘Sooty Six’

Soot pollution is linked with acid rain, respiratory disease and premature death. In 1997, ConnPIRG launched a campaign to clean up six of Connecticut’s worst polluters: the “Sooty Six.”

Working on behalf of ConnPIRG, Green Corps campaigners Bernadette Del Chiaro and Merc Pittinos went door to door to build support for a bill targeting the Sooty Six.

Canvassers educated 36,000 Connecticut citizens on power plants, thousands of whom wrote letters urging the governor to clean up the plants.

Year after year, the campaign built support but fell short, inspiring a campaign slogan: “If we lose, we lose big and come back stronger.”

After three years of grassroots organizing, Connecticut residents were on our side. One citizen, Bob Megna, felt so moved by our campaign that he ran for — and won — a seat in the state Legislature after his representative had opposed cleaning up the Sooty Six.

We had shifted the political winds, and in May 2002, Gov. John Rowland signed the first law in the country to limit power plant carbon pollution.

Pennsylvania tackles the ‘Toxic Ten’

The Pittsburgh region ranks in the top 2% of counties with the highest cancer risk from air pollution. In 2019, the worst polluting facilities, dubbed the “Toxic Ten” by PennEnvironment, accounted for 60% of Allegheny County’s emissions from industrial sources.

Since 2015, PennEnvironment has released updated lists of these 10 worst polluters and hosted an action week inviting Pittsburghers to call for stronger pollution restrictions.

In 2021, Pittsburgh saw progress. After reducing its emissions, the No. 1 polluter in years past dropped to the No. 7 slot, and for the first time, another Toxic Ten polluter dropped out of the ranking altogether.

PennEnvironment members and staff are hoping for more positive results in the years to come, results similar to those won in:

• Connecticut, where our action helped cut emissions from the Sooty Six by a whopping 86%,

• Colorado, where the CoPIRG-backed Colorado Clean Air Act of 1992 has diminished Denver’s infamous “Brown Cloud,” and

• Massachusetts, where by 2017, all of the Filthy Five power plants had agreed to shut down – and a solar farm had sprouted atop the retired coal plant in Holyoke.

About this series: PIRG, Environment America and The Public Interest Network have achieved much more than we can cover on this page. You can find more milestones of our work on clean air below. You can also explore an interactive timeline featuring more of our network’s clean air milestones.