As the temperatures heat up, so does concern about the air we breathe. Already, air in one county near Charlotte has registered enough ozone this year to potentially cause health problems. Rowan County, downwind from its larger neighbor Mecklenburg, exceeded federal ozone standards three days in a row last month, according to local officials. The episodes — April 18 through April 20 — are the earliest days in recorded memory that ozone levels have exceeded what the Environmental Protection Agency says are acceptable amounts. And that isn’t the only development troubling some environmental observers.
Though an American Lung Association “State of the Air” report last week indicated Mecklenburg has improved enough to drop off the list of the 25 most ozone-polluted US counties, the Charlotte region still ranked as the 12th most afflicted metropolitan area in the country. That’s up two spots from last year.
The annual report gave Mecklenburg’s air quality an F — a grade the association gave to just more than half the 51 counties it examined in North Carolina.
“We definitely need to take (the report) seriously,” said John Wear, director of Catawba Center for the Environment and a member of Rowan’s air quality commission. “It’s affected by weather patterns, and it’s affected by congestion, but it’s a symptom of a problem that we need to be acting on.”
Ozone serves as a natural barrier in the upper atmosphere but can trigger a variety of health problems when formed at ground level. A primary component of smog, ozone typically becomes a problem in the summer, when vehicle exhaust and industrial chemicals react with heat and sunlight to form the gas.
According to the EPA, even at low levels, ozone can aggravate asthma, reduce lung capacity and increase susceptibility to illnesses such as pneumonia and bronchitis. Long-term exposure may cause permanent lung damage.
April’s ozone readings in Rowan, for instance, were high enough to pose such dangers for sensitive groups, according to officials. Those three days, however, don’t provide many hints for a summer air-quality forecast, said Don Willard, Mecklenburg’s air quality director.
The past two summers have been milder than usual, Willard said, and that helped air quality. The temperatures may be one reason why Mecklenburg dropped off the lung association’s top 25 list. The association used data from 2001 to 2003, which means last summer’s mild temperatures weren’t a factor, though state data indicates some levels improved last summer.
Though the region, which includes Gastonia and Salisbury, moved up on the list of the most ozone-polluted places, it’s still an improvement over many rankings in recent years. In 2000, for instance, the Charlotte area ranked number 8 — higher than Dallas, Philadelphia and New York City.
The general improvement is mostly due to federal initiatives, though state and local measures have made an impact, Willard said.
Federal scrutiny increased in April 2004, when the EPA’s designation of Charlotte as a “non-attainment” area ushered in regulations with which the region must comply by June 15, 2010. Otherwise, Charlotte stands to lose $6 billion in transportation funding. That includes money for roads as well as the light rail funding hailed as a possible solution to Charlotte’s congestion.
That’s one reason why the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce is encouraging local businesses to participate this summer in voluntary pollution-reduction measures, said David Franchina, chairman of the chamber’s environmental concerns committee.
A mandatory version of that plan proposed last year by Mecklenburg’s Air Quality Commission didn’t receive county commission approval after the chamber and other business representatives said the plan wouldn’t reduce ozone levels enough to merit the burden on businesses. “The vast majority of the ozone problem is cars and trucks,” Franchina said last week. “It’s difficult to tell people to get out of their cars.”
But the chamber agreed to support a voluntary program — only about 15 businesses participated last year. The chamber is now seeking more businesses to participate this summer and also is talking with city and county representatives about longer-range voluntary reduction measures, Franchina said.
County commission chairman Parks Helms said the groups could have a plan within a few months. “It’s got to be something that the business community will support,” he stated. “It’s got to be something that’s realistic and obtainable.”
Wear, who is also an associate professor of biology and environmental science at Catawba College, says people can take several measures to reducing ozone, from cutting down on driving to trading in their lawnmowers for more efficient ones. But communities need to be made more walkable, he suggested.
The lung association’s report has drawn attention from some critics who say it’s a political tool. The group’s Web site, lungusa.org., urges people to write letters to Congress opposing the Bush administration’s Clear Skies Act. The act’s proponents say it would reduce power plant emissions mercury, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, but environmentalists say its provisions would gut the Clean Air Act.
Air quality director Willard notes that the lung association’s report is useful, but its methodology isn’t one by which he judges how the local area is doing. The ozone readings themselves indicate Charlotte’s air quality problem, he said, and “that’s my concern.”
This article appears in May 4-10, 2005.
