Taking the Smoke Out of the 

 Smokiest City 



How Pittsburgh Has Solved Its Most Irksome Problem 



The public now knows that smoke means a waste of fuel; 

 that a waste of fuel is a waste of money, and that a waste 

 of money is bad business management. The Bureau of Mines 

 says that the best smoke preventer known to science today 

 is a conscientious and careful fireman, provided he is sup- 

 plied with necessary aids in the form of proper equipment. 

 The smoke is expressed in terms of the Ringlemann chart 



TO all inlcnts and purposes, Pitts- 

 burgh has solved its smoke prob- 

 lem. Although it is having a hard 

 lime living down the time-worn nick- 

 name of "the Smoky City," the fact 

 remains that as a result of the efforts of 

 a municipal Bureau of Smoke Regula- 

 tion, the "production and emission of 

 smoke" in Pittsburgh has been abated 

 fully seventy-five per cent within the 

 past three years. And that in spite of 

 the fact that the business activity and 

 the coal consumption have greatly 

 increased during that time. 



No other city has been confronted 

 with a smoke problem of such magni- 

 tude or has encountered so i 2 

 many difficulties in solving 

 it. The three rivers, the 

 deep valleys, the frequency 

 of high humidity and low 

 wind velocity, with resultant 

 fogs, were handicaps to be 

 overcome. The extent of the 

 mill district, the great number of stacks 

 in restricted areas, the immense (|uantity 

 of smoke-producing fuels consumed, the 

 characteristics of the high volatile coal 

 natural to the district and the \aricty 

 of boiler and metallurgical furnaces, 

 were in part responsible for the dense 

 smoke that used to cover the city like a 



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40% 

 Black 



Ringlemann smoke chart 

 with which the density 

 of smoke is estimated 



pall, sometimes making it necessary to 

 use artificial light in midday. 



Experts have calculated that smoke 

 causes more than a half billion dollars 

 damage each 3,'ear to li\^es and property 

 in the United States. Investigators of 

 the Mellon Institute of Industrial Re- 

 search, University of Pittsburgh, dis- 

 covered that Pittsburgh's annual loss, 

 due to the smoke nuisance, was at least 

 ten million dollars. The agitation for 

 smoke abatement crystallized into a 

 great civic m<nement, in which all the 

 industries of the city were urged to join. 

 On March 4, 1913, the city council 

 passed several ordinances relating to the 

 3 1 regulation of prtnluction and 



emission of smoke and en- 

 larging the scope of the Bu- 

 reau of Smoke Regulation, 

 organized some time before. 

 The smoke limits were 

 changed from eight minutes 

 in one hour for all stacks, to 

 one minute in any perioil of eight for 

 locoinotix'cs and steamboats, and two 

 minutes in any period of tiftecii for all 

 stationary stacks. 



The Bureau also extended its in 

 spections and watched closely for viola- 

 tions, appealing to the industrial and 

 business concerns to assist as a matter of 



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Black 



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