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Allen County, which has danced between grades of D and F for ozone levels in recent years, has earned another F for its polluted air.
The American Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report gave Allen County a failing grade in its 2009 report, which examined air monitoring data from 2005 to 2007. Last year’s report gave the county a D.
Huntington County’s grade plummeted from an A to an F. The A it received in 2007 was up from a C the year before.
“This should be a wake-up call,” said Stephen J. Nolan, American Lung Association National Board chairman, in a written statement announcing the report. “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.”
In addition to ozone pollution, the report also looked at short-term particle pollution and year-round particle pollution data. Allen County got a C for short-term particle pollution and a pass on the year-round criteria, which was graded only pass or fail.
Particle pollution is a toxic mix of microscopic soot, diesel exhaust, chemicals, metals and aerosols. It is the most dangerous and deadly of the outdoor air pollutants that are widespread in America, the group said. Breathing in particle pollution can increase the risk of early death, heart attacks, strokes and emergency room visits for asthma and cardiovascular disease.
Although ozone forms a protective layer high in the atmosphere that protects the Earth from ultraviolet radiation, ground-level ozone is a powerful respiratory irritant and can cause shortness of breath, chest pain, and wheezing and coughing. For someone with asthma, high ozone levels could be deadly. Ozone pollution also causes smog.
The report calculates that six of 10 Americans live in areas with unhealthy levels of air pollution and that 40.5 million Americans live in counties where the outdoor air failed all three tests.
Tony Burrus, Allen County Safety and Environmental director, said the biggest contributors to ozone pollution include idling cars and small engines such as lawn mowers.
“I hate to say it, but it’s the drive-through at McDonald’s and Starbucks and all the others,” Burrus said.
Allen County has also gone in and out of ozone standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency. If the county fails those standards again – as it is expected to when standards are toughened in the coming years – it will be harder for industry to locate to the county, possibly costing the area badly needed jobs.
“It has a significant impact on economic development,” Burrus said.
Environmental regulators often downplay the risk of pollution, saying the data they collect should not be used to indicate the risk of health problems. But the Lung Association said the pollution is killing people.
“The science is rock-solid. We now know that air pollution can impair the lung function of even the healthiest people,” said Dr. Norman H. Edelman, American Lung Association chief medical officer, in the announcement. “Air pollution worsens asthma and is a direct cause of heart attacks, which makes people living with lung and heart disease especially vulnerable.”
The report’s author, Janice Nolen, told The Journal Gazette that efforts to clean the air have worked.
“The evidence is clear. We have study after study that tell us that air pollution … can kill people and shorten lives,” Nolen said. She cited a recent study showing that clean-air strides made between 1980 and 2000 added five months to the average life span.
She said the dramatic pictures of the air pollution in Beijing during the Olympics last summer might have made Americans too comfortable with the air in the U.S.
“We have pollution that’s killing people,” Nolen said. “California just recalculated the number of people killed by particle pollution and found 18,000 people die from particle pollution each year. That’s a lot of people.”
Certain people are especially vulnerable to the effects of air pollution, including infants and children, older adults, people with lung diseases like asthma, people with heart disease or diabetes, in addition to anyone who works or exercises outdoors.
According to Lung Association figures, there are almost 135,000 Allen County residents younger than 18 or older than 65. More than 155,000 people suffer from asthma, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, cardiovascular disease or diabetes, making them particularly susceptible to the effects of pollution.
The Indianapolis metropolitan area was ranked No. 11 in the nation among cities most polluted by short-term particle pollution and No. 18 for year-round particle pollution.
