
Joseph Soffer Family Trust Fund, © Ginger Brooks Takahashi
From the bell of a megaphone, Ginger Brooks Takahashi’s voice delivers a sobering call about the air pollution crisis in Pittsburgh. In the monologue, Takahashi weaves together a description of the air conditions near Edgar Thomson Steel Works, one of the last operating U.S. Steel mills in Braddock, Pennsylvania; excerpts from news articles; community reports submitted to the Smell PGH app; and inflammatory online comments responding to a selfie of the artist wearing a respiratory mask. Takahashi underscores how air pollution threatens public health and how environmental issues become politicized and amplify socio-economic and racial divisions which complicate efforts to address these urgent concerns.
I wrote this text while I was working on a farm located next to an active steel mill outside of Pittsburgh. This text is woven from writing from my own experiences, public reports submitted to an app used to document and report air quality, and comments from Steelworkers and internet trolls responding to a selfie I posted on social media, as well as various news sources. The performance text was commissioned by Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, performed at The High Line in 2018.
–Ginger Brooks Takahashi
Sulfur
Industrial, sulfur
rotten eggs.
industrial, rotten eggs
Industrial, burning
Industrial. Fuel. Diesel and gas.
Diesel from trucks
Industrial, like burning plastic
I wear an air filter mask when I’m at my work site
I wear it to filter (out toxins from) the air I’m breathing
Industrial, sulfur
Industrial
Smells like manure
Industrial
Diesel
Diesel
Sulphuric
Industrial
I use an app on my phone to check the air quality reading
The app reminds me that there have been 362 dirty days in the past year.
Rotten eggs
Smoke, fuel, industrial
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs
When I first started spending time here eight years ago I didn’t think that the air quality was something to worry about. If the town allowed the steel industry to coexist with residents and laborers, then I assumed it was safe to be around. And I didn’t hear residents talk about it, only visitors.
Rotten eggs, burning smell
Industrial, rotten eggs, exhaust
Industrial, rotten eggs
Rotten eggs, burning chemical smell.
The damn steel mill. It smells like sulfur and farts
Rotten eggs, burning chemical smell
Industrial and rotten eggs
Rotten eggs, burning smell
One narrative I hear often is that the air used to be so thick with smog that you couldn’t hang your laundry to dry outdoors. Also, that the smog was so thick that days would look like nights. People talk about how much cleaner the air is now as if that justifies an acceptable level of air pollution.
Diesel
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs
The steel mill. It smells like sulfur and rotting flesh. It’s bad
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs
Diesel
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs
Our city’s air was ranked 8th worst for fine particulate pollution in the US for the last three years by the American Lung Association.
Rotten eggs, chemical smell
Rotten eggs and a little sweet
Sulfur
Rotten eggs
Industrial
Rotten eggs
Diesel exhaust from trains?
Diesel and rotten eggs
I became more acutely aware of the air quality where I live when I started to learn about the local steel mill as a potential site for a proposed unconventional gas well. This highly toxic and dangerous, yet de-regulated practice is proposed on an industrial site which already regularly exceeds emissions violations.
As my community group explores the environmental dangers of hydraulic fracturing, we also ask ourselves, what else is possible here? Could we build wind turbines or solar fields at the top of the hill? Would that satisfy the economic hunger? Or is wind and sun too much of the other?
Who gives a FUCK!
And tell Ginger to go fuck his self !!!
They’re drilling and have been drilling all over the place…..
nothing around where I live has happened..
Your faucet water is going to catch on fire Jerry
I have PA American water… lol
Water is overrated… that’s why I drink beer
In March, Trump announced a 25 percent tax on foreign steel and 10 percent tax on aluminum, citing national security as a primary reason.
The Administration argued the tariffs would give a boost to the domestic steel and aluminum industries, which have declined over the last few decades because of competition abroad.
Oil and gas production is steel-intensive, with steel products needed for drilling, pipeline, onshore and offshore production facilities, refineries, Liquified Natural Gas terminals, and petrochemical plants.
I am assuming the dude with the mask on is from the country (Japan) who’s nuclear power plant (Fukushima) is still dumping toxic nuclear radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean
I lived in Braddock all of my life go back to eat your dogs and cats
I miss when the smoke was black and killed the weak.
My savage meter is going off the charts
Those mills are my fucking birthright.
My home sure is beautiful. Choke on it pussy!
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs.
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs
PM 2.5 is also produced by diesel vehicles. My work site is situated along a route used by trucks to transport the coke produced at the mill. Soot from the trucks accumulates in the space between the street and the sidewalk. Upon recent testing, this soot contains chromium, lead and manganese. When the wind blows, these particulates re-enter the air and become part of us.
Rotten eggs, burning chemical
Industrial
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs.
Rotten eggs
One of my co-workers did a study of the neighborhood as a high school student and found that there was not one place in the borough with (EPA) acceptable levels of air pollution.
Industrial
Rotten eggs
Diesel trucks along Braddock Ave
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs
Rotten eggs
What causes one to break their silence?