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 The American Lung Association report ranked Tucson as the fifth-cleanest U.S. city for long-term particle pollution and Pima County as the 18th-cleanest county in that category. "Clean air saves lives," said Bill Pfeifer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association of Arizona.
David Sanders / Arizona Daily Star
SOUTHERN ARIZONA ENDODONTICS I NSURANCE PROCESSOR Dental Apache Dental Porcelain Techs General Prestige Maintenance USA Area Manager Technical Yavapai College Analyst Banner Programmer Health Care Freedom Manor Caregivers Education Yavapai College Teachers Retail TOTAL WINE & MORE WINE TEAM MEMBERS, CASHIER & STOCK MEMEBERS Tucson RegionReport gives Pima County air high marksLung association surveys pollution in cities, counties
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.28.2006
Pima County's air quality gets high marks from the American Lung Association, including an "A" ranking for fine-particle pollution from power plants, cars, diesel trucks, heavy equipment and industry.
In its annual, national "State of the Air" report released this week, the association gave the county a "B" for pollution from ground-level ozone, a byproduct of photochemical smog that is most heavily linked to emissions from cars.
"Clean air saves lives," said Bill Pfeifer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association of Arizona. "Our high grade means that fewer people in Pima County are exposed to unhealthy air."
The report ranked Tucson as the fifth-cleanest U.S. city for long-term particle pollution and Pima County as the 18th-cleanest county in the same category.
It ranked every major U.S. city and county that has air- quality monitors, and relied on the results of monitoring tests taken annually in those places from 2002 through 2004 — the most recent data available.
Pima County has never exceeded the national air-quality standard for fine-particle pollution, and hasn't exceeded the ozone standard since the 1980s. It has not exceeded the federal standard for larger-particle pollution since 2003.
A local area must exceed one of the standards four times in three years to have formally violated the standard. That has not occurred for any pollutant in Pima County since the county violated the larger-particle standard in 1999.
But some warning signs have appeared for the county since the period that this report covers. Last summer, ozone readings crept up at times to 90 percent of the federal limits, after staying at no more than 85 percent in the past. Last winter, the county had 74 days of "moderate" air quality for large particles, compared with 14 days during the winter of 2004-05.
Beth Gorman, a Pima County environmental official, said she is pleased with the lung association's high rankings, particularly the "A."
One reason for the county's high ranking in that area is that Tucson isn't an industrialized city, so it doesn't have the long list of potential polluters of a Houston or Los Angeles with far more industries, she said.
Many of the problems that the county has with particle pollution stem from car and other vehicle emissions, dust from dirt roads and construction sites, and fireplaces in the wintertime.
Although many scientists have said the current federal standard for particle pollution is inadequate, a University of Arizona professor said the county still deserves its "A" grade. The Environmental Protection Agency is now proposing to tighten that standard, but many environmentalists and scientists say even the new standard won't be tough enough.
"If you set a standard and you meet the standard, the "A" rating is deserved," said Mary Kay O'Rourke, a professor of public health.
O'Rourke said, however, that she expects to see this area start violating the ozone standard as it keeps growing and adds more cars, more emissions and hotter temperatures from global warming. Ozone is produced by the reaction of hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions from fuel combustion in vehicles with sunlight. It is typically worse in the summer.
"All it will take is one hot day," said O'Rourke, adding that she doesn't know how far the Tucson area is from violating the standard. "I just see that coming."
Gorman agreed that there's a reasonable chance the county will eventually violate that standard.
"Now, we've only got a 10 percent cushion," said Gorman, a county Department of Environmental Quality program manager. "That's not much. We are inching closer and closer."
● Contact reporter Tony Davis at 806-7746 or tdavis@azstarnet.com.
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