Worst Air Pollution Disaster in United States

Donora, Pennsylvania Smog Alerts U.S. Government to Change Laws

May 24, 2009

In 1948, smoke ran like water in the Monongahela Valley and caused residents to die while others fled their homes in order to protect their health.

In May 1899, the Union Improvement Company purchased 382 acres 30 miles south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to form a small town called Donora located along the Monongahela River. A year later, the town was laid out and within three years a thousand buildings were built and the population grew to six thousand.

Donora Becomes Industrialized

The name Donora is a combination of Nora, the first name of R.B. Mellon’s wife and W.H. Donner’s last name. Both men were investors in the Union Steel Company, which broke ground in 1900 and later became know as American Steel and Wire Works, a rod mill.

According to the Pennsylvania Historical Museum Commission’s website on Donora “workers, and job-seekers flocked to the area, especially recently arrived immigrants. In 1948, 14,000 people resided in Donora, and additional thousands lived in towns in the immediate vicinity.” Most of the residents were of Russian, German, and Polish descent.

Air Inversion Keeps Air from Rising

On October 26, 1948, a cold blanket of air settled over the Monongahela Valley trapping sulfur dioxide from the mills. The trapping was caused by an air inversion, where cold air aloft prevents warmer, often polluted air, from rising and dispersing. Air inversion prevents clouds from forming and rain showers to occur that would otherwise clean the air. Weather fronts and pollution can cause the inversions.

The residents of Donora were familiar with the sulfur dioxide odor and went about their usual routine in spite of the smell and difficulty in visibility. The Halloween Parade went on as scheduled and the high school football game played to a packed crowd.

Mid Day Turns Into a Deadly Midnight

By noon on October 30, the yellow smog was so thick that residents could not see their hands in front of them and cars were driven with their headlights on. The air burned the throats and caused breathing difficulties. Within three days of the event, eleven people had died and thousands of others had fallen ill.

The local hotel became an emergency hospital because the two surrounding hospitals were filled to capacity. The basement of the hotel became a morgue because the funeral homes were full.

Firemen delivered oxygen tanks to residents who had trouble breathing. The firemen had to reach out in front of them to feel the surface of a house or a fence in order to get to where they were going because visibility was difficult. It took them 45 minutes to travel several blocks, which normally may have taken ten or fifteen minutes.

Owners of the nearby zinc plant were asked to shut down, but refused. Finally, on Sunday, October 31, the plant did agree to shut down to eliminate smoke and fumes. This proved to help and soon visibility improved. It also began to rain, which helped to clear the air. The following day, the zinc plant resumed operations.

In 1951, after litigation, the Donora Zinc Works agreed to settle out of court and paid $250,000 to Donora residents. The zinc company never took responsibility for what had occurred in 1948. By 1957, the Donora Zinc Works was closed and by 1968, the U.S. Steel Company closed all its Donora plants.

Donora Put Air Pollution Control on the Map

The event provoked local, state, and federal governments to look at what took place in Donora and how to prevent it from happening again. Regulations were put into place and by 1955 the Pittsburgh area had cleaned up emissions by 97 percent. In 1963, the United States Congress passed the Clean Air Act and then in 1970 with the insistence of Senator Edward Muskie of Maine, the Clean Air Act was amended requiring states to reduce emissions according to federal guidelines.

Sources:

Davis, Devra. When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution. New York, Basic Books, 2002.

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