[PRCo] Re: Home

[mtoytrain at bellsouth.net]

Fred

Once again your information is fantastic, I knew that was the "outcry" of the Mon Valley Residents why wasn't their some type of control, so it was Washington county that didn't have any?   how about
Westmoreland and Monessen?    What strikes me now, is the fact that all the hillsides of Donora when the Zinc Works were in operation were bleak and bare no vegetation, but now the hills are all
green and really looks good.    I understand fish are swimming in the Monongahela now as when I
used to go skinnydippin there weren't any back in the late 40s and 50s.

Jerry
> 
> From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> Date: 2005/10/27 Thu PM 03:09:16 EDT
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Home
> 
> Yes.    But Donora is in Washington County. It did not apply there.
> 
> There were attempts to clean up the atmosphere in Pittsburgh very  
> early but it was not always politically palatable.   In fact the city  
> office of the Bureau of Smoke Regulation was closed in 1939.   In  
> 1941, however the city passed a smoke control ordinance but several  
> months later, in response to our entry into World War II, enforcement  
> of this city law had to be postponed until 1946.   It applied  
> initially only to factories but was extended, with some political  
> difficulty, to private homes in October 1947 (because it required  
> people to either convert to smokeless fuels (gas or oil) or use coal  
> in conjunction with mechanical stokers.   In spite of protests from  
> the Pennsylvania Railroad, which made a lot of money haul coal and  
> who burned coal in prodigious quantities, a county-wide smoke control  
> law passed the state senate on April 30, 1947.    The Pennsylvania  
> Railroad had enough diesels to convert their Pittsburgh operations by  
> 1952, although Pitcairn Yard briefly saw steam again in the summer of  
> 1955.   The B&O had steam based in Pittsburgh right up to 1956.
> 
> What do I remember?   I was born in 1940 so not a whole lot.   We  
> lived in those pristine suburbs where the sun shined.   The white  
> paint on the house, according to photograph evidence, did turn gray  
> in the space of a year, but as a kid I didn't know that.   But I do  
> remember seeing a lot of buildings being sand blasted in the late  
> 1940s (including the Pennsy station).   They suddenly changed from  
> "Ostrava Gray" to all sorts of bright granite and limestone shades.
> 
> Federal regulations came much later, again with the Republicans  
> kicking and screaming.      ???
> 
> On Oct 27, 2005, at 2:39 PM, Boris Cefer wrote:
> 
> > Wasn't there a "smoke control" in Pittsburgh in the late 40s?
> >
> > B
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <mtoytrain at bellsouth.net>
> > To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 10:23 PM
> > Subject: [PRCo] Re: Home
> >
> >
> >
> >>   Boris
> >>   The "Smog" of Donora i was a 9 year old boy, I remember even to  
> >> this
> >>
> > day, we were at a Donora High school  verses Monongahela High School
> > football game and you could not see across the football field  
> > because of the
> > Smog, yes a neighbor died from it, you could hardly breather.  My Dad
> >
> >> was employed by the Donora Zinc Works which caused the problem  
> >> along with
> >>
> > the inversion of the
> >
> >> air over the valley.  It was a bad time and that is what  
> >> eventually closed
> >>
> > that steel city down and the rest of the Steel Industry in the Greater
> > Pittsburgh area.
> >
> >>
> >> Jerry
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
>