At the Allegheny County Board of Health meeting on Wednesday, one Bellevue resident told the board to be strict in its punishment of Shenango, Inc., a coke battery which was recently cited and fined many times for air pollution.

Nonprofit consultant William Bartlett said that Bellevue’s Northgate School District has an asthma rate of nearly 37 percent, much higher than the state average, and he said that Shenango is to blame for much of the air pollution that led to the high asthma rate.

Accordingly, he said that the Health Department should enforce the myriad of fines assessed on Shenango over the past year, and urge the company to cut down on its pollution by introducing better technology in its facility.

“I believe they’re assessed $1,000 per violation, and so for a company that is doing $30 million in sales each year, I think these are considered a cost of doing business,” said Bartlett.

The Board of Health is slated to meet with Shenango leaders in the near future to discuss the issue. A December meeting on the subject was cancelled.