How polluted is Orange County, as compared to neighboring areas? (Santa Ana: home, university)

[LuvSouthOC]

Here is the area map with pollution all over the state.

Seal Beach to San Clemente seem pretty clean. Some of Yorba Linda, Tustin, Villa Park, etc. look pretty clean.

South OC seems to do well: ones that look cleanest to me are Newport, Laguna Beach, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, and Mission Viejo. I can't make out the other ones. San Juan, inexplicably, is more polluted.

Anaheim, Santa Ana and Fountain Valley seem to score the lowest for OC, but still do not seem to appear on the worst offenders list.

Perhaps a better tool is "Highest Scoring Areas in California"

Overall, Orange County does well. There are some pockets, especially in the northernmost portions of OC. But in general, it is significantly less polluted than LA. Note too the IE.

[denverian]

Originally Posted by LuvSouthOC

Here is the area map with pollution all over the state.

Seal Beach to San Clemente seem pretty clean. Some of Yorba Linda, Tustin, Villa Park, etc. look pretty clean.

South OC seems to do well: ones that look cleanest to me are Newport, Laguna Beach, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, and Mission Viejo. I can't make out the other ones. San Juan, inexplicably, is more polluted.

Anaheim, Santa Ana and Fountain Valley seem to score the lowest for OC, but still do not seem to appear on the worst offenders list.

Perhaps a better tool is "Highest Scoring Areas in California"

Overall, Orange County does well. There are some pockets, especially in the northernmost portions of OC. But in general, it is significantly less polluted than LA. Note too the IE.

Uh.. yeah. In most of OC you get a sea breeze and no mountains to block that sea breeze, which blows the pollution inland. And the IE is so polluted because when that nice sea breeze blows the pollution east, it gets trapped out there by the mountains. It's always been that way.

I went to college for a couple years at CSU San Bdno. in the early '90s and the smog was horrendous. The air smelled like bleach. If you cleaned your car, two days later you had a layer of black dust on it. I think it's improved out there since then, but it was absolutely horrible at one time.

[LuvSouthOC]

I think they are measuring much more than just bad air. I will give one example of something fairly close to me merely as an example. The sight upon which Soka University shows as being somewhat polluted. How can that be?

They also say UCI is polluted.

I understand hospitals and dry cleaners are sources of pollution, but do not know how they measured all of the other sources.

[nightlysparrow]

Originally Posted by LuvSouthOC

I think they are measuring much more than just bad air...How can that be?.

It might help if you'd take the time to fully read what you post. Found on the more info link:

"CalEnviroScreen is a screening methodology that can be used to help identify California communities that are disproportionately burdened by multiple sources of pollution."

[ExeterMedia]

Whenever I go into the SGV, I end up getting a sore throat. I think there is a definite difference in air quality between coastal areas, and inland areas.

[LuvSouthOC]

I saw that Nightly, thanks. But I cannot find a listing of everything that is considered pollution. Are gas stations considered pollution?

By the way, I wrote "sight" up top and it was supposed to be site.

UPDATE: If you click on any polluted location, you can see a drop down.

[8to32characters]

Not nearly as polluted as L.A. or the Inland Empire, that's for sure. Lol.

[cgk2013]

We moved to South Orange County a year and a half ago from the Central Valley (Bakersfield area). One of the main reasons we chose O.C. was due to our son's chronic asthma and allergy issues. The air is so bad there, that before the age of five he had four surgeries for Ear Tubes, had his tonsils and adenoids removed, repeat pneumonia infections and was constantly wheezing. In a little over a year living here, he's had NOT one asthma attack. Every time we go back to visit family, we come home coughing and sniffling. It's disgusting!

I wouldn't say Orange County has the cleanest air in the country, but it is so much better than other areas in California.