Blue State Humiliation - Los Angeles Still Most Polluted City Overall
Patriot Games
Pittsburgh Takes Prize for Sootiest City; Los Angeles Still Most Polluted
Overall
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
LOS ANGELES - A city outside California has, for the first time, been named
the sootiest in the nation, one of the categories the American Lung
Association uses to determine the most polluted cities in the country.
Los Angeles still took the all-around pollution title though.
Pittsburgh overtook Los Angeles in the category that measures short-term
particle pollution or soot. Los Angeles, the country's longtime soot and
smog leader, has enacted aggressive measures to tackle sources of pollution,
resulting in a substantial drop in particle pollution levels, said Janice
Nolen, the Association's Assistant Vice President of National Policy and
Advocacy.
"It's not that Pittsburgh has gotten worse, it's that Los Angeles has gotten
better," Nolen said. "If the trend continues, Pittsburgh will top two lists
and LA will only be leading the nation in ozone."
Still, Los Angeles held its own in two other categories measuring year-round
soot levels and smog. And statewide, 26 of California's 52 counties with air
quality monitoring stations got failing grades for having either high ozone
days or particle pollution days.
The Association's "State of the Air: 2008" report, being released Thursday,
was based on air quality measurements reported by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency by state and local agencies between 2004 and 2006. The
study looks at three key pollution measures.
The eight metropolitan areas considered to be the nation's most polluted by
every measure were: Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Fresno, Visalia-Porterfield
and Hanford-Corcoran, all in California; Washington DC-Baltimore; St. Louis;
and Birmingham, Ala.
The cleanest cities were: Fargo, N.D., and Salinas, Calif.
The rankings were based on ozone pollution levels produced when heat and
sunlight come into contact with pollutants from power plants, cars,
refineries and other sources. The lung association also studied particle
pollution levels emitted from these sources, which are made up of a mix of
tiny solid and liquid particles in the air.
The study found that about 42 percent of residents across the country live
in counties with high levels of particle or ozone pollution.
"When you think of the impact of ozone on our respiratory tracts, imagine
putting acid right in your eye. It's that corrosive," said Tony Gerber, a
pulmonary specialist and assistant professor at the University of
California, San Francisco. "This corrosiveness causes severe irritation and
leads to problems like asthma attacks, coughing, wheezing, chest pain and
even death."