Air quality in Missoula (Helena: homes, closing, to live)

[vjenifer]

My family and I are considering relocating to Missoula. Can anyone tell me what the status of the air quality is? I have heard that the pollution can be pretty bad. Thanks.

[jimj]

Current air grades from the American Lung Assoc. are the following:
PARTICLE POLLUTION - Annual
Grade: F
Weighted Average: 5.8
Orange Particle Days: 13
Red Particle Days: 3
Purple Particle Days: 0

"Particle pollution is the most dangerous, and deadly, of the widespread outdoor air pollutants. Soot is an old name for particle pollution."

Ozone, no current grade but last year was a "c" from what I remember.

Groups at risk:

Pediatric Asthma: 1,762
Adult Asthma: 6,320
Chronic Bronchitis: 3,240
Emphysema: 1,265
Cardiovascular Disease: 23,189
Diabetes: 5,600

Total Population: 100,086
Population Under 18: 19,794
Population 65 & Over: 10,405

[JoeJoeMan]

The subject came up the other day -

It use to be that the air was really bad in Missoula in the winter time, wood smoke from homes and mills, dust and the air inversions made it worse. Well the wood burning smoke kinda got brought in check by law BUT now it's the forest fire smoke in the summer - have lived thru both I'd definetly prefer the former - at least back then you kick back and honker down for the winter knowing that a beautiful summer would eventually come and you get out and really enjoy it.
But now summer sucks with all the smoke and it seems to be a pretty regular event. And now they start closing down the forest to recreation because of the fire danger and shutdown or restrict the rivers to use and/or fishing because of water levels and temperatures.
I don't know about you, but I'd swap the old dirty winters for these miserable summers.

[NYMTman]

I was in Missoula today and I thought it smelled like rotten eggs.

[Interpol76]

I used to live there and some days I felt as if my eyeballs were burning out of my skull.

[Rickers]

In Tacoma Wa. they used to call that paper mill smell "The Tacoma Aroma" !

[truckingbronco]

It stinks. I lived there for several years and never really got used it it. The weird thing is that there are several distinct smells that work there way into the vally at different times, so you never really got used to it. You will probably hear alot of people tell you about the stoves or paper mill stench Moderator cut: put down.

[AQHA]

Originally Posted by JoeJoeMan

... now it's the forest fire smoke in the summer...

I don't know about you, but I'd swap the old dirty winters for these miserable summers.

I live in Helena and I totally agree. I HATE the summer air we have been getting the last few years. For a few months we had almost total overcast from the smoke. I had to fly up to Alaska in August to get away from it.

I hope this is not the way its going to be from now on... my good horse even seemed to be bothered by the smoke this summer.

[truckingbronco]

Why did the moderator cut the word hippy out of my last post?

[JoeJoeMan]

truckingbronco wrote:

Why did the moderator cut the word hippy out of my last post?

Maybe it's considered politically incorrect now, because it takes on the conotation of a pot smoking dumb liberal It's funny how stereotypes get started - my daddy said that they were always based in some truth, like it would be competely unnatural to stereotype an Irishman as penny pincher or a Jewish person as a drunk - but......if you get my drift - personal I was bombarded with ethnical slurs all the time when I was a kid for what I was - and they were all pretty much true, so they didn't really bother me, besides the other ethnic groups got their share of insults right back and we all laughed and became better friends - funny thing though, as mixed as our commuity was, no one ever took offense to any of it, shows you how times have changed.....Back then no one was proud of their heritage or ashamed of it, it was just what it was, your ethnisity (I think that's a new word politicaly correst term) in short we never thought much about it - WE WERE ALL THE SAME - JUST KIDS, JUST PEOPLE, I think that's a lesson we should learn again today - and stop all this uptight crap that people go thru today about they are this, that or the other ethnic group - give it up already, learn to take a joke and an insult, get over it and we'll all be alot happier if we can all just learn to laugh at ourselves more the way we use too. WE"RE NOT ALL SPECIAL - and we propably deserve alot of the sterotypes we got - SO WHAT, SO WHAT, I didn't let it change my life or lose a minute of sleep over it, course if you want to - go ahead - be miserable. Cheers