Matt Mehalik has served as executive director of the Breathe Project, a Pittsburgh-based collaborative of more than 50 regional and national environmental advocacy groups since 2016.

Mehalik is also an adjunct professor of environmental policy at Carnegie Mellon University and previously served as a program director for Sustainable Pittsburgh.

EHN: What types of expertise should be represented on a board of health?

Matt Mehalik: Because the health department holds responsibility for implementing the federal Clean Air Act in Allegheny County, we particularly need people with a higher level of expertise in air quality regulation.

We need people who have expertise in preventing diseases like asthma, and we need people with technical expertise in air pollution monitoring and enforcement, and people who deeply understand air pollution’s impacts on public health.

We should also have more voices and representation from community members who are impacted by air pollution — particularly those in environmental justice communities or in close proximity to the most impactful sources of air pollution.

EHN: Are there any types of appointees you think should be avoided on the new board of health?

Matt Mehalik: We need to avoid regulatory capture by powerful industries. This is currently a problem.

For example, the Allegheny County Health Department has a subcommittee on pollution prevention and education, and it’s chaired by U.S. Steel — one of the biggest industrial polluters in the county. As a result, they’re not doing their job, which is to educate people about air pollution. Industry interests are also overrepresented on other advisory committees, like the air advisory committee, and impacted communities are underrepresented. That needs to stop.

There’s also a complete lack of transparency about who sits on these committees, what their affiliations are and how long their terms are. Those committees don’t have any legal force — they’re just advisory — but they do exert influence.

EHN: Are there any specific initiatives you’d hope to see a newly revitalized board of health take on, particularly related to environmental health in the region?

Matt Mehalik: First, I’d like to see much-improved dialog with local communities that experience air pollution issues.

Second, the county should never agree to settlement agreements that create “pay to pollute” relationships with polluting entities — something we have major problems with right now.

Third, we need better partnerships to analyze data and gather information related to air pollution events. We have the Smell Pgh app and Breathe Cams that Carnegie University’s CREATE Lab has created in collaboration with the Breathe Project, and the health department basically ignores all of that data right now.

Fourth, there’s still a backlog of Title V permits at the health department. We need to eliminate that backlog and improve the way those permits are tracked and managed.