Sunday, May 5, 2002
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Sunday, May 5, 2002 |
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Fayette's air is getting worse
By JOHN
THOMPSON
Fayette County is one of the most unhealthy counties in the country when it comes to air pollution. That's the assessment from the American Lung Association's State of the Air report released this week. Fayette ranked as the 23rd most polluted county in this year's survey. Fulton County remains the state's most polluted and ranked as the seventh most polluted nationally. The report states that 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. 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; Merced, Calif.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, N.C.-S.C.; and Sacramento-Yolo, Calif. "It is clearly time to get serious about enforcing all of the provisions of the Clean Air Act so that we place Americans' health above business and political interests," said John L. Kirkwood, American Lung Association president and CEO. "Yes, we've made great progress in cleaning our nation's air, but this report illustrates that we have a long way to go to give our children safe air to breathe." Fayette County was one of the four counties on the list of the 25 most ozone-polluted counties this year were not on the list last year. In its rankings, the report said Fulton County had 86 days that were unhealthy to sensitive groups, 22 unhealthy days for all the population and 9 that were very unhealthy. By comparison, Fayette County had 55 unhealthy days for sensitive groups, 15 unhealthy for all residents and three days that were very unhealthy.
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