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Air Pollution Endangers Lives of Six in 10 Americans
WASHINGTON, DC - Six out of every 10 Americans - 186.1 million people - live in areas where air pollution endangers lives, according to the 10th annual American Lung Association State of the Air report released yesterday.
View of the smog from Griffith Observatory (flickr photo by Al Pavangkanan) Some of the biggest sources of air pollution - dirty power plants, dirty diesel engines and ocean-going vessels - also worsen global warming, the Lung Association says in State of the Air 2009.
As America deals with the linked challenges of air pollution, global warming and energy, the Lung Association urges Congress, the U.S. EPA and individuals to choose solutions that help solve all three challenges together.
Nearly every major American city is still burdened by air pollution, and the air in many cities became dirtier since last year, the report finds, despite "substantial progress" made against air pollution in many areas of the country and more attention paid to the environment by America's growing green movement.
"This should be a wakeup call. We know that air pollution is a major threat to human health," said Stephen Nolan, American Lung Association National Board Chair. "When 60 percent of Americans are left breathing air dirty enough to send people to the emergency room, to shape how kids' lungs develop, and to kill, air pollution remains a serious problem."
State of the Air 2009 includes a national air quality report card that assigns A-F grades to communities across the country and details trends for 900 counties over the past decade.
The report ranks cities and counties most affected by the three most widespread types of pollution - ozone, or smog; annual particle pollution; and 24-hour particle pollution levels.
The report finds that air pollution hovers at unhealthy levels in almost every major city, threatening people's ability to breathe and placing lives at risk.
"The more we learn, the more urgent it becomes for us to take decisive action to make our air healthier," said Nolan.
Many cities, like Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, Charlotte, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Baltimore have made improvements in their air quality over the past decade.
Only one city, Fargo, North Dakota, ranked among the cleanest in all three air pollution categories.
Seventeen cities appeared on two of the three lists of cleanest cities: Billings, Montana; Bismarck and Sioux Falls, North Dakota; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Colorado Springs, Ft. Collins, and Pueblo, Colorado; Farmington and Santa Fe-Espanola, New Mexico; Honolulu, Hawaii; Lincoln, Nebraska; Midland-Odessa, Texas; Port St. Lucie, Florida; Redding, Salinas, and San Luis Obispo, California; and Tucson, Arizona.
The three cities most polluted by ozone are all in California - the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside metropolitan area; Bakersfield, a center of agriculture, petroleum extraction and refining, and manufacturing in the San Joaquin Valley; and Visalia-Porterville, a San Joaquin Valley agricultural community.
Pittsburgh-New Castle, Pennsylvania tops the list of cities most polluted by 24 hour fine particle pollution, while the three California cities that top the most polluted ozone list are close behind in this category and also for year-round particle pollution.
Ozone
In March 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopted a new, tighter standard for ozone pollution. The new standard showed that unhealthy ozone levels are more widespread and more severe than previously recognized.
Evaluating the most recent data against the new standard, the American Lung Association found that approximately 175.4 million Americans - 58 percent - live in counties where ozone monitors recorded too many days with unhealthy ozone levels, far more than the 92.5 million identified in the State of the Air 2008 report.
Sixteen cities making this year's 25 most ozone-polluted list experienced worse smog problems than last year.
The Lung Association's review found consistent improvements in ozone in some cities, such as Los Angeles, with its long-standing ozone problem.
But two cities, Dallas-Ft. Worth and Las Vegas, have higher ozone levels than 10 years ago.
Ozone is the most widespread form of air pollution. When inhaled, ozone irritates the lungs, resulting in something like a bad sunburn. The health effects of breathing ozone pollution can be immediate. Ozone can cause wheezing, coughing and asthma attacks. Breathing ozone pollution can even shorten lives.
"More than 175 million Americans live in areas with unhealthy smog levels - that's 80 million more than we identified in last year's report," said Charles Connor, American Lung Association president and chief executive. "We at the American Lung Association believe that the new ozone standard is not yet strong enough to protect human health - an opinion nearly all scientific experts share."
In March 2008, the EPA adopted a standard of .075 parts per million, ppm, after legal action by the American Lung Association forced the agency to complete a formal review. This standard is not as strict as the standard of .060 ppm recommended by the Lung Association.
The association, along with states, public health and environmental groups, has taken the EPA back to court in an attempt to force the agency to adopt the .060 ppm standard before its scheduled five-year review in 2013.
Particle Pollution
State of the Air 2009 grades counties for both 24-hour and year-round levels of particle pollution - a toxic mix of microscopic soot, diesel exhaust, chemicals, metals and aerosols.
A polluted sunset over Bakersfield, California, July 16, 2007. (Photo by Andy Castro)
"It is the most dangerous and deadly of the outdoor air pollutants that are widespread in America," the Lung Association says in its report, warning that "breathing in particle pollution can increase the risk of early death, heart attacks, strokes and emergency room visits for asthma and cardiovascular disease."
One in six people in the United States lives in an area with unhealthy year-round levels of fine particle pollution (termed annual average levels).
Nine cities in the list of the 25 most polluted by year-round particle pollution showed measurable improvement, including five cities that reported their best year-round levels since the Lung Association began tracking this pollutant: Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Atlanta, York and Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
The annual average level of particle pollution worsened in a dozen cities, including Bakersfield and Los Angeles, California and Houston, Texas.
Roughly three in 10 Americans live in counties with unhealthful spikes of particle pollution which can last from hours to days (termed 24-hour levels).
Thirteen cities had more days, or more severe days, of spikes than in last year's report. Eleven cities have improved continually since the 2007 report.
New data show that women in their 50's may be particularly threatened by air pollution and that diesel truck drivers and dockworkers who are forced to breathe exhaust on the job may face a greater risk of developing lung cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
California researchers have tripled their estimate of the number of people that particle pollution kills each year in their state.
"The science is rock-solid. We now know that air pollution can impair the lung function of even the healthiest people," said Norman Edelman, MD, American Lung Association chief medical officer. "Air pollution worsens asthma and is a direct cause of heart attacks, which makes people living with lung and heart disease especially vulnerable."
Dr. Edelman suggests that people living in areas of high particle pollution "must recognize that this is the fact of their lives, and they must be more careful about other life factors - stop smoking, eat well, exercise."
In addition, Dr. Edelman suggests, people who live with particle pollution "must take action help us and other organizations to change the EPA regulations. It's personal, it's affecting them and their neighbors." In addition, he said, they can take local political action to change regulations such as engine idling, and clean up diesel-powered school buses.
Low income people and some racial and ethnic groups often face greater risk from pollutants. Pollution sources like factories and power plants may be closer to their homes, the Lung Association points out. Many live near areas with heavy highway traffic or have poor access to health care, which makes them even more vulnerable. Some racial and ethnic groups have a higher prevalence of diseases like asthma or diabetes, which compounds the ill effects of air pollution for these groups.
"We need to renew our commitment to providing healthy air for all our citizens - a commitment the United States made almost 40 years ago when Congress passed the Clean Air Act," Connor said. "After four decades, we still have much work to do."
"America needs to cut emissions from big polluters like coal-fired power plants and ocean-going vessels," Connor said. "We need to fix old dirty diesel engines to make them cleaner and strengthen the ozone standards to better protect our health. We also need to improve the decaying infrastructure of air monitors. America must now enforce the laws that help us improve our nation's air quality."
CLEANEST U.S. CITIES
Cleanest U.S. Cities for Ozone Air Pollution *Cities below had equal scores.
* Billings, Montana
* Carson City, Nevada
* Coeur D'Alene, Idaho
* Fargo-Wahpeton, North Dakota-Minnesota
* Honolulu, Hawaii
* Laredo, Texas
* Lincoln, Nebraska
* Port St. Lucie-Sebastian-Vero Beach, Florida
* Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Cleanest U.S. Cities for Short-term Particle Pollution (24 Hour PM2.5) *Cities below had equal scores.
* Alexandria, Louisiana
* Amarillo, Texas
* Austin-Round Rock, Texas
* Bismarck, North Dakota
* Brownsville-Harlingen-Raymondville, Texas
* Cheyenne, Wyoming
* Colorado Springs, Colorado
* Corpus Christi-Kingsville, Texas
* Fargo-Wahpeton, North Dakota-Minnesota
* Farmington, New Mexico
* Fort Collins-Loveland, Colorado
* Grand Junction, Colorado
* Longview-Marshall, Texas
* Midland-Odessa, Texas
* Oklahoma City-Shawnee, Oklahoma
* Portland-Lewiston-South Portland, Maine
* Pueblo, Colorado
* Redding, California
* Salinas, California
* San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, California
* Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Goleta, California
* Santa Fe-Espanola, New Mexico
* Sioux Falls, South Dakota
* Tucson, Arizona
10 Cleanest U.S. Cities for Long-term Particle Pollution (Annual PM2.5)
* Cheyenne, Wyoming
* Santa Fe-Espanola, New Mexico
* Honolulu, Hawaii
* Great Falls, Montana (tied for 4th)
* Flagstaff, Arizona (tied for 4th)
* Farmington, New Mexico (tied for 6th)
* Anchorage, Alaska (tied for 6th)
* Tucson, Arizona
* Bismarck, North Dakota (tied for 9th)
* Salinas, California (tied for 9th)
MOST POLLUTED U.S. CITIES
10 U.S. Cities Most Polluted by Ozone
1. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, California
2. Bakersfield, California
3. Visalia-Porterville, California
4. Fresno-Madera, California
5. Houston-Baytown-Huntsville, Texas
6. Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Yuba City, California-Nevada
7. Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas
8. Charlotte-Gastonia-Salisbury, N.C.-S.C.
9. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Arizona
10. El Centro, California
10 U.S. Cities Most Polluted by Short-term Particle Pollution (24 Hour PM2.5)
1. Pittsburgh-New Castle, Pennsylvania
2. Fresno-Madera, California
3. Bakersfield, California
4. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, California
5. Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman, Alabama
6. Salt Lake City-Ogden-Clearfield, Utah
7. Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Yuba City, California-Nevada
8. Logan, Utah
9. Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City, Illinois-Indiana-Wisconsin (tied for 9th)
10. Detroit-Warren-Flint, Michigan (tied for 9th)
10 U.S. Cities Most Polluted by Year-Round Particle Pollution (Annual PM2.5)
1. Bakersfield, California
2. Pittsburgh-New Castle, Pennsylvania
3. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, California
4. Visalia-Porterville, California
5. Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman, Alabama
6. Hanford-Corcoran, California
7. Fresno-Madera, California
8. Cincinnati-Middletown-Wilmington, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana
9. Detroit-Warren-Flint, Michigan
10. Cleveland-Akron-Elyria, Ohio
Visit www.lungusa.org to search local air quality grades by zip code.
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17 Comments so far
Show AllPerhaps we could give hemp and algae for fuel a chance to reverse the air pollution instead of cap-and-trade which is nothing more than a venture capitalist idea to cash in on the "environment going bad" sentiment.
"Pittsburgh-New Castle, Pennsylvania tops the list of cities most polluted by 24 hour fine particle pollution..."
This rating is very unfair. The sampling point was on a hill directly across the Mon river and downwind from the Clarton coke works - the only coking facility left in the area, outside of and downwind of the city.
There are some problems from old, poorly tuned buses causing street-level diesel soot along the busier routes. This could be easily fixed if we didn't have severe public transit funding problems.
But, the air in Pittsburgh is visibly much cleaner than the DC/Baltimore area, especially in the summer. It is comparable or even better than much smaller Lexington Kentucky wher I formerly lived.
You raise a good point. I don't see anything that suggests we have adequate monitoring in weather parameters much less pollution parameters. Likewise with health monitoring. We should be collecting a lot more data than we do today. And it should all be freely accessible online. Imagine you are a university student wanting to do a research study. This great mass of data should be available to you.
The other problem is we get reports such as in the article above that simply lists the most/least polluted places, year after year, decade after decade. What we really want is an explanation, e.g. why would Phoenix be the most and Tucson the least polluted when they are 100 miles apart? This isn't whining. This is articulating a civic demand, something USans ought to do much more of. And the media ought to illuminate the process so people can get involved.
For example, high speed rail projects have been in the works for years but we only recently saw a story on it here at CD. It looks like we have a real opportunity to create a new kind of media. Please don't race off to your underground cave laboratory to be the first to invent it. Let's build it out in the open, in a public process.
"The science is rock-solid"
One of the things that isn't rock solid is the public's understanding of the "science" in question, particulate pollution. Why is this? Left unanswered is the curious fact that nature has presented particulate pollution to the lungs of terrestrial animals throughout their evolution. Here's an example of what the scientists should be writing up for public consumption. The numbers are hypothetical, of course:
"The particulate pollution in Bakersfield is about 3 times over the natural volume before industrial agriculture took hold in the area. The natural volume was composed mostly of clays and silicas, typical of arid climates, and represent about a 50% increased risk for chronic respiratory ailments over wetter climates. Industrialization increased the natural risk to 100% by mechanical stirring of dust. Add to that the sulfurous particles from fossil fuel combustion, to triple the natural risk. A reasonable goal is to eliminate the sulfurous particles to bring the risk for arid Bakersfield back down to 100% over the natural wet climate risk."
"Why would Phoenix be the most and Tucson the least polluted when they are 100 miles apart?"
It may be simply the location of the the monitoring points and the weight given them. Of course, the Phoenix area is a larger, and most importantly, very sprawling city with very heavy per-capita car use. People in Phoenix can do their part by doing everything they can in choosing homes and workplaces to minimize car use.
But in Pittsburgh, per capita car use is low compared to other cities, it still suffers from declining population and a weak economiy, so doesn't need unfairly maligned by a probelem that is localized and one of the few remaining sources of good-paying steel worker jobs.
I agree with you, Leftist.
I am from Pittsburgh too. The air here is way cleaner than it was in my youth, a loooong time ago.
But I still wonder how good these reports are when they don't take chem-trails into account. There were a bunch of them over our fair city this past Tuesday.
Sorry, but "chem-trails" are just airliner contrails.
The reason you see them some days and not others is simply because of varying humidity at the altitude the planes fly. When the upper air is humid, you get contrails from the water vapor in the jet engine's exhaust.
Phoenix is in a hole.
"the air in many cities became dirtier since last year"
Thank your 100 million votes for elite "business as usual" political candidates.
Jeevee
We have read that anyone living 15 miles or less from an airport is living in very polluted air. Yet we Honoluluans certainly live close, as does practically every place in the Hawaiian chain of islands. Our air is hard to breathe most of the time, and the dust is thicker every year. But you list Honolulu as one of the cleanest cities in the nation. When were your statistics collected? What are we to believe?
Jeevee
Also, fireworks are politically correct here, to an extent that is largely out of the control of our conscientious police. Even though houses have been destroyed by fireworks and one child in Waimanalo was tragically half-blinded, a few years ago, Under-the-table money seems more important to the majority of the legislature... WHAT are we to believe?
I live within 2 miles of the center of SeaTac airport in Seattle, and do not notice much pollution at my house, but I am to the northwest of the airport, and most of our wind comes from the south\west, which puts me either upwind, or well off to the side...
I decided to ride my bike around the airport one day, however, and can tell you that there was a very sizeable cloud (I was in it for several minutes) of exhaust at the runway ends that I almost couldn't navigate due to the lack of breathable oxygen...
We just added a third runway...as if two weren't enough...
Nothing is forever, not even the planet. Still, it appears that we are in a race to make it inhabitable for humans. Most land animals will perish right before we do. Fish will come out again, and conquer the land, as they evolve into humanoids again.
We'll have to land on the moon all over again.
STOP MEDIA CONTROL!!!
Writing from a metropolitan area (Los Angeles) infamous for air pollution, I can state that the air quality is much better than it used be. When I was growing up, local air quality reports (i.e., first stage smog alert, etc.) were constant part of the weather report on the local newscast. That is no longer the case. Now we have to worry about the consequences of global warming.
For those interested...
The air in the California cities can be cleaned by building a number of Vortex Ventilators in the city centers. The driving force is the urban heat island effect.
They will be able to drag cleaner surface air in from outside the city and shoot it up via a vortex (wormhole, to some) into the prevailing westerlies at altitude, which carry it eastward, over the mountains.
They will keep doing it well into the night, making the morning air in the cities a lot cleaner and healthier. Really!! http://vortexengine.ca
There seems to be a pervasive confusion, even in this article, about the difference between smog and ozone. They are not synonymous. As I understand it, ozone is a natural reaction to particulate pollution, helping to rid the air of the pollution. As the volume of pollution increases or decreases, so does the ozone. The combination of the two is smog.
There seems to be two schools-of-thought on this: The E.P.A. contends that ozone is a primary pollutant, but does not discuss it's relationship to particulate or gaseous pollution in the creation of smog.
The other school-of-thought contends that ozone cleans the air and is a beneficial force of nature. There are ozone generators avialable in this capacity for indoor use.
It seems reasonable to me the statement by E.P.A. that ozone, at very high levels is irritating and dangerous, but from what I have read, particulate pollution, particularly small particle, is the main pollutant, and should not be confused with smog or ozone.
It is my opinion that media sources (including government) are calling particulate pollution and smog "ozone" to steer the focus away from the fact that the pollution is man-made, making it look, rather, like nature is causing the pollution. I believe there are economic forces behind this labeling.
Actually ozone has nothing to do with particulates (i.e fine soot). It is a by-product of photochemical interaction with nitrogen oxides and unburned volatile hydrocarbons. Thes primarily come from car exhaust. Other byproducts form the haze typically called "smog".
Ozone is a respiratory irritant in itself, but it s mostly used because it is an easy to measure indicator of other smog pollutants. As the list shows, high ozone is a hallmark of the more sprawling car-use-intensive cities that also get a lor of sunshine. In the eastern US some summer haze is a natural byproduct of hydrocarbons emitted by decidiuous forests - particularly in the heavily wooded Appalacians.
I don't know how they can include Maine as one of the cleanest areas. Maine is known as the "tailpipe" of America, since the prevailing wind brings the fetid air from the industrial mid-west right through our state, forcing us to post hazardous air warnings on clear, breezy, April days.
Just an example of how interconnected we are.
And, oh, btw, Maine has prevailed on the mid-west states to clean up their air so that we don't keep breathing it here in Maine. They haven't and they won't. Out of sight, out of mind is our culture's mantra.