The State of the Air 2002, May 2002
More than 142 million Americans—75 percent of the nation’s population living in counties with ozone monitors—are breathing unhealthy amounts of ozone air pollution (smog), representing the third straight year in which the toxic pollutant reached fully half of the American public, according to the American Lung Association®’s State of the Air 2002 report. Of those living in the 678 counties monitoring ozone, the vast majority of the most vulnerable lived in the nearly 400 counties receiving an “F,” including nearly three-quarters of the seniors and more than 70 percent of children who had an asthma attack in the last year. The findings are compounded by the reality that, due to a series of legal and management delays, states are relying on weak federal clean air standards in place since 1979.
Among those metropolitan areas scoring “Fs,” the 10 most ozone-polluted areas are Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County, Calif.; Bakersfield, Calif.; Fresno, Calif.; Visalia-Tulare-Porterville, Calif.; Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, Texas; Atlanta, Ga.; Merced, Calif.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, N.C.-S.C.; and Sacramento-Yolo, Calif.
The American Lung Association® [www.lungusa.org] offers the report online.
