Report : Smog down, but soot in Eastern states worse

Pollution levels in the United States are getting both better and worse, according to an annual report tracking the nation's air quality prepared Tuesday by the American Lung Association.
The upside is that smog levels declined nationwide between 2003 and 2005, aided by the appearance of more pollution controls on smokestacks, according to the report, called "State of the Air: 2007."

The bad news is that the number of places in the United States reporting unhealthy levels of soot grew over the same period, the report found. Soot describes the tiny particles of pollution generated by burning fossil fuels.
This "ominous trend," found particularly in the Eastern states., is worrisome because soot pollution can increase hospital visits for heart and asthma problems, the American Lung Association said.
The honors for the cleanest cities and metropolitan areas went to the Fargo-Wahpeton area spanning North Dakota and Minnesota; Rapid City, S.D.; and Salinas, Calif. These were the only locations to make all three lists for lowest levels of short-term soot, long-term soot and smog levels.

Smog improvements
Smog levels have declined significantly throughout the country from peak levels reported in 2002, especially in the eastern half of the United States, the report said. The evidence is in the number of counties previously receiving failing grades for smog pollution that now score a passing grade, the medical association added. Also, 145 counties received a grade of "A" in the current report, compared with 82 counties in 2000.
One-third of the U.S. population now lives in counties with unhealthy short-term levels of smog -- down from nearly half reported in the group's last report. Better pollution controls that cut the emissions spewed from coal-burning power plants and cooler summer weather in 2003 and 2004 are credited with driving this trend.
Smog found at ground level is a concern for health groups, because this kind of pollution can exacerbate cardiac and lung conditions, especially among children and the elderly.
For many Western states there is also evidence of improvement. California, which hosts 14 of the most smog-polluted counties in the country, cut the number of days its residents faced unhealthy smog levels, according to the report. While Atlanta and Chicago returned to the list of cities with the worst smog levels, they likewise reduced the number of high smog days from levels in previous reports. Los Angles remains the smoggiest city in America.
Soot levels rise in the East
Despite success in curbing smog pollution, the Eastern states are battling rising levels of unhealthy soot. Coal plants running harder to respond to greater demand for electricity are pumping more of this fine particle pollution into the air, the group found.
Throughout the United States, 334 counties had higher real levels of year-round particle pollution between 2003 and 2005 compared with their records for 2002 to 2004, the report said. Two-thirds of these counties are located in the Eastern states. Outside of that half of the country, soot levels have declined, it added. Nationwide, one in three Americans lives in an area with unhealthy short-term levels of soot.
Soot pollution tends to be worse in the eastern United States because of the prevalence of coal-fired power plants, the report said, and could get worse in coming years since 159 new coal-fired power plants have been proposed nationwide as of January 2007. Over 70 of these plants are proposed east of the Mississippi River.
Los Angeles and Pittsburgh top the list of cities most polluted by soot. Metropolitan areas in the eastern half of the country reporting higher levels of soot included Atlanta; Birmingham, Ala.; Chicago; Cleveland; Detroit; Harrisburg, Pa.; Indianapolis; and Lancaster, Pa.

One critic challenged the report's notion that increased electricity production from power plants caused the rise in particulate pollution seen in 2005. "Sulfur dioxide from power plants [the source of power-plant particulate pollution] has actually been dropping due to a declining Clean Air Act cap on total emissions," commented Joel Schwartz, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Schwartz also said that the report makes some areas look more polluted than they actually are and pointed to how only one monitoring site must fail to put an entire county in violation. "[The American Lung Association] continues to count 'clean' areas as 'dirty,'" he alleged, adding that the group "gives F grades to entire counties, even if almost the entire county complies with the toughest federal standards."
The American Lung Association acknowledged in the report that the methodology used to assign passing and failing grades to counties for smog and soot pollution "differs significantly" from the methodology that the Environmental Protection Agency uses to determine whether counties have violated some pollution standards. "Consequently, some counties will receive grades of F in this report showing repeated instances of unhealthy air, while still meeting EPA's" ozone standards.
Stricter limits sought
The association wants the federal government to impose stricter limits on smog and soot pollution.
The Environmental Protection Agency last reviewed and tightened the smog standards in 1997. In a report issued this January, the agency's staff scientists recommended that the agency consider setting the ozone limit at levels well below the current standards. The EPA administrator is scheduled to propose a new standard by June.
Last year, the EPA completed a similar process for fine particle pollution. The agency tightened the daily standard for one type of soot pollution, though not to the level sought by the American Lung Association, and decided not to tighten the standard for year-round soot exposure.
Using the federal government's standard for unhealthy soot levels, 73 counties in the country receive failing grades. But the American Lung Association along with a host of environmental and medical groups support a stricter standard that would lead to 299 counties having dangerous air pollution year round, the report said.