Winston-Salem Journal
“County receives ‘F’ on ozone levels”
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Forsyth County had too many high-ozone days between 2010 and 2012 to get a passing grade from the American Lung Association, but the county’s top environmental officer said things are better now because more recent weather has been cooler and moister.
The American Lung Association gave Forsyth County an F on ozone levels for the period, during which the county reported 23 days with ozone levels in the “Orange” category That’s when air quality is unhealthy for sensitive groups, such as people with lung or heart conditions, young and old people and people working or exercising outdoors.
More recent data show an improvement, said Minor Barnette, director of the Forsyth County Office of Environmental Assistance and Protection.
“Last year was the cleanest we have ever had,” Barnette said. “We only had one ozone exceedance, one time in May. That was the cleanest we have been since monitoring began. In late June and July of 2012 we had that big ozone event that affected the whole eastern half of the country. The air was hot and dry and we didn’t have much mixing.”
The F rating for ozone was unchanged from the report issued the year before, but the county earned an A grade for having no high-particle pollution days from 2010 to 2012. That ranking was also unchanged from the previous report.
“The air in Forsyth County is cleaner than when we started the State of the Air report 15 years ago,” said Susan Berryman-Rodriguez, project director for Mothers and Others for Clean Air, a program of the American Lung Association in the Southeast, in a statement released along with the report.
The previous report, for the period 2009- 2011, did not include the bad ozone levels in 2012 that caused a spike in bad ozone grades all over the state.
Ozone develops in the atmosphere from gases that come out of tailpipes, smokestacks and other sources. When the gases come into contact with sunlight, they react and form ozone smog.
The American Lung Association said that ozone is a lung irritant that can cause anything from wheezing and coughing to premature death.
“Moisture in the air mass helps mitigate the formation of ozone,” Barnette said. “It was one of the coolest and moistest summers we have had.”
Particle pollution, as the name suggests, is a mix of very tiny solid and liquid particles of pollution.
Barnette said that the advance of cleaner cars and fuels will add to improvements in the county’s air quality over time.
“The more we exploit the ability of technology to improve air quality, the more it is going to go to individual decisions,” Barnette said. “In general the automobile fleet continues to improve. The more we accomplish, the closer we are getting to a time when the biggest impact is going to be our own personal decisions.”
