121 Million People Live in Areas with Unhealthy Air Quality, October 18, 2001
81.5 million people live in counties that exceed the ozone NAAQS, and at least 75 million people live in counties that violate the PM2.5 standards according to the annual air quality trends report released by EPA October 18, 2001. All told, 121.4 million Americans live in counties that violate the basic public health standards for any of six criteria air pollutant.
The EPA report provides the first official estimates of the number of people that live in areas that with air quality concentrations above the NAAQS for the new ozone and fine particle standards.
The report makes clear that year 2000 monitoring data for fine particles is still highly incomplete, so the actual number of people exposed to unhealthy particulate matter concentrations may be higher, when more complete data is available. EPA will require three years worth of air quality data before determining whether areas violate the health-based standards for PM2.5. However, based on two years of data available in most of the country, many areas across the Southeast, Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic regions, and California, have air quality that is unhealthful due to fine particles.
A recent Quality Assurance report from EPA indicates that only 60 percent of fine particle monitoring stations reported “complete” data in 2000. States such as Tennessee and Kentucky had incomplete data for most of their monitoring stations.
The report noted that in the southern and north central regions of the U.S. ozone levels have worsened in the past 10 years. Also, the average ozone levels in 29 national parks have increased by over 4 percent in the last ten years.
Appendices to the report provide detailed county by county listings of peak air quality values for criteria air pollutants for the year 2000.
Copies of the report and tables are available at: http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/.
