Austin gets an F from American Lung Association(Ozone) (Houston: home, live)

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Something you should know....

Per the F grade for Ozone, the following was of interest.......Austin and Travis County received an "F" for ozone pollution....


“Our failing grades for ozone mean that the health and lives of individuals in Austin are at risk," said Sara Dreiling, CEO for the American Lung Association of the Central States. "Now is the time to step up our response.”


The State of the Air report includes a national air quality “report card” that assigns A-F grades to communities across the country and ranks cities and counties most affected by the three most widespread types of pollution (ozone—or smog, annual particle pollution, and 24-hour particle pollution levels). The report also details trends for the 25 most polluted cities. Grades for the 1,000 counties with air pollution monitors can be found by typing in the zip code at www.stateoftheair.org.

Ozone is created from automobile exhaust. Per Austin's huge amount of traffic, and ever-growing vehicle count, obviously the collective assault of emissions has an effect...

Exposure to high concentrations of ground-level smog can cause a variety of respiratory (breathing) problems. Ozone pollution aggravates asthma and can cause respiratory infections. Ozone pollution adversely impacts plant life, reducing crop yields and killing trees.
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When you see a vehicle in Austin with dirty smoke coming from its exhaust for more than 10 consecutive seconds, get the license plate number and call (800) 453-SMOG. That's the hotline for the TCEQ's Smoking Vehicle Program.






You will be asked for:

• the license plate number
• the date
• the time
• and the location where you saw the smoking vehicle.

You do not have to give your name, and the call is free. The TCEQ will then notify the owner that his or her vehicle may be contributing to air pollution by smoking excessively and provide the owner with information about how to improve the vehicle's performance.
Things to check in keeping your car maintained properly are: dirty carburetors, clogged air filters, and worn points and plugs that waste gasoline. These cause increased emissions of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides.

Interesting, to say the least......Looks like we are becoming a mini-LA, just like every other place that Californians have moved to enmasse, ala Phoenix,
Las Vegas, and Denver...there are days you can't even see Camelback Mountain just off the freeway in Phoenix....will that soon be the case for our Capitol building, from I-35?

[hoffdano]

If you look at that site - you will see that Travis County's grade is the same as much of the USA. Pick a state and pick almost any populated county.

The grading system appears to generate a very high number of F scores. Many counties have an F, yet Travis had no "red" days. Travis scored an 'A' for particle pollution.

San Francisco county scored an A for ozone, but an F for particle pollution.

It is not a score to be proud of.

Look at Ohio, Michigan, or NJ - every single county scored F.

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Originally Posted by hoffdano

If you look at that site - you will see that Travis County's grade is the same as much of the USA. Pick a state and pick almost any populated county.

The grading system appears to generate a very high number of F scores. Many counties have an F, yet Travis had no "red" days. Travis scored an 'A' for particle pollution.

San Francisco county scored an A for ozone, but an F for particle pollution.

It is not a score to be proud of.

Look at Ohio, Michigan, or NJ - every single county scored F.

I would hate to bring home a report card as a kid, and boast I got an A and an F.....sad for the other F places as well...and surely some places did better than F for Ozone......I would be concerned per ranking at the bottom per Ozone, and think anyone with kids should be aware that Austin gets an F smog rating, along with the worst of the nation's metros...

Don't worry about the company we share the F rating with, worry about the Ozone itself....
and I always thought that, with all the traffic, we had a huge local smog problem....which will surely get worse as years go on....

[verybadgnome]

It doesn't matter what ALA thinks. It is the EPA that will determine whether or not we are in attainment for ground level ozone. This will have a great effect or not on federal funding and transportation planning.

[woodinvilleguy]

everyone should bike to work like me!! :-) Of course I produce CO2.... darn it.

[OneJackson]

F is for Flame and Austin definitely has that...lol

[oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots]

Oh that's just great! Let's turn in all the people that cannot afford a brand new car. WTH?

[hoffdano]

The standard for an F is very low. That is why ALMOST EVERY medium to large city in the USA gets an F. Please look for yourself.

The link below shows that Austin is not in the top 25 for either ozone or particle pollution.

Most Polluted U.S. Cities by Ozone (http://www.stateoftheair.org/2009/city-rankings/polluted-cities-ozone.html - broken link)

An interesting thing in that chart too - click on Houston, or Dallas, or LA. Select the ozone trend chart. All of these cities show an improving ozone trend over the last decade. We know Houston and Dallas are cities with growing populations - yet their ozone levels are improving. My guess is continued improvements in vehicles. I could not find trend data for Austin - but I see no reason Austin's ozone trend would not follow other Texas cities.

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Originally Posted by verybadgnome

It doesn't matter what ALA thinks. It is the EPA that will determine whether or not we are in attainment for ground level ozone. This will have a great effect or not on federal funding and transportation planning.

My understanding is that the EPA has a greatly watered down version of compliance, progressively diluted from 20 + years of lobbyist/industry/republican interests, prob from about the time Reagan's Interior secretary stated that trees cause pollution(O2).....true, the burning of the same releases captured Co2, but that is from humans, though natural forest fires can do the same...

That being said, the EPA is a very weak org, with weak guidelines, and even weaker enforcement....I wouldn't trust their guidelines as far as I could throw them, and you can see that the ALA is far more reality driven than the EPA, with no vested interests in their back pocket.....

[inthecut]

Originally Posted by hoffdano

The standard for an F is very low. That is why ALMOST EVERY medium to large city in the USA gets an F. Please look for yourself.

The link below shows that Austin is not in the top 25 for either ozone or particle pollution.

Most Polluted U.S. Cities by Ozone (http://www.stateoftheair.org/2009/city-rankings/polluted-cities-ozone.html - broken link)

An interesting thing in that chart too - click on Houston, or Dallas, or LA. Select the ozone trend chart. All of these cities show an improving ozone trend over the last decade. We know Houston and Dallas are cities with growing populations - yet their ozone levels are improving. My guess is continued improvements in vehicles. I could not find trend data for Austin - but I see no reason Austin's ozone trend would not follow other Texas cities.

Everything I've run into per trends says that air and water pollution levels were getting better, up to around the mid 80's, after which, nationally, they went backwards.....SUV's, and the trend for families to have 3-4 cars, were a large part of the same....most large metros had large traffic gridlock, and in some cases, like LA's and Phoenix, amongst other, insufferable problems.....population/vehicle growth would trump trends anyway, and Austin has the largest vector of growth in the US.

I still remember working on the 87th floor of the Sears Tower a few years ago, and seeing, for the first time, a permenent brown haze on the horizon at every vantage point, and thinking that that crap is what we breathe in on a daily basis.....

Take a look at those two pics of DT Austin, and look at the haze......and then think about all the brown CO and particulates you are breathing on a daily basis in the Austin metro....and lastly, realize that Austin has nothing resembling a mass transit system on any level, and, very possibly, never will, unless some calamity, such as a huge spike in oil prices comes about.

At what point SHOULD we be concerned about the smog/brown haze?

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can anyone pull up any info on the same per Austin's compliance, specific %/numbers of pollutants, and the largest polluters in the area?.......I haven't mentioned groundwater(drinking water), so perhaps we can add that to the mix........