Report: Scranton/Wilkes-Barre air getting cleaner
The air in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties is cleaner than it has been in more than a decade, according to a report released today by the American Lung Association.
The region had fewer spikes in short-term particle pollution, lower background levels of soot in the air and less ozone pollution than at any point since the association began tracking soot and smog levels around the country in 2000.
The annual "State of the Air" report evaluates the air quality in metropolitan areas and counties based on data collected by the federal Environmental Protection Agency over a three-year period.
Both Lackawanna and Luzerne counties had fewer days with unhealthy amounts of ozone pollution, or smog, during the study period between 2009 and 2011. Both counties received a B grade in this year's report, up from Lackawanna's D grade and Luzerne's C grade last year.
Lackawanna County had two days during the three-year period when ozone levels were declared unhealthy for sensitive populations and Luzerne County had one.
Particle pollution, or soot, also improved in Lackawanna County, the only county within the metro area where it is measured.
The grade for daily particle pollution levels improved from a C to a B grade since last year's report and the county had just two high soot days over the three-year period. The annual average concentration of soot in the air also continued its gradual, decade-long decline.
"It is good news when you're doing that well," said Kevin Stewart, the director of environmental health for the American Lung Association of the Mid-Atlantic. "There were just a few days here and there over the course of a three-year span when air pollution levels were worse than the air quality standard that EPA has in place."
Particle pollution can be caused by dust, diesel exhaust, fires and power plants. Ozone forms when sunlight interacts with polluting gases, like those emitted by burning fossil fuels.
Both particle and ozone pollution are tied to asthma attacks, lung irritation, cardiovascular problems and a shortened lifespan.
Cleaner-burning diesel engines and fewer emissions from coal-fired power plants helped improve air quality nationally and especially in the eastern United States, according to the association.
Power plants that substituted cleaner natural gas for coal also helped reduce air pollutants across the study period, Mr. Stewart said.
"We are getting closer to properly controlling air pollution from a lot of different sources that in the past were not adequately controlled," he said.
More than 40 percent of Americans still live in counties with dangerous levels of either ozone or particle pollution, according to the report.
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