O.C. air quality gets an F grade

Andrew Edwards

Orange County’s skies are too dirty, according to the American Lung

Assn. The organization gave the county failing grades in its annual

air quality survey.

The American Lung Assn.’s State of the Air 2005 report gave Orange

County F grades for amounts of ozone and particle pollution measured

in the air from 2001 to 2003. Orange County was one of 32 California

counties to be assigned a failing grade in the report.

Air pollution is “a chronic problem that exists in this whole

metropolitan area,” said Dr. Paul Selecky, a lung specialist at Hoag

Hospital and a board member for the Orange County chapter of the

American Lung Assn.

The report equates ozone with smog, and particle pollution with

soot. It describes the two contaminants as the most common types of

air pollution in the United States.

The report assigned grades by counting the days that pollution

posed health risks, giving extra weight to days when air was

particularly bad, and averaging the amount over the three years

studied. Though Orange County fared poorly in the test, the area did

better than neighboring regions. Los Angeles County’s ozone score was

almost 14 times as bad as Orange County’s and San Bernardino County’s

score was about 23 times worse.

Data recorded by the South Coast Air Quality Management District

shows that air pollution is not uniform across the county, and

Newport-Mesa is in a cleaner area. A map depicting pollution levels

for 2002, the most recent year that information is available, shows

coastal areas had less ozone and particle pollution that year than

the county’s inland cities.

“I think the main reason is that the ocean breezes, the sea

breezes, blow the air pollution inland,” agency spokesman Dan Atwood

said.

The report blamed transportation as the most significant source of

pollution and singled out diesel exhaust as a cause for much of the

particle and ozone pollution. The study also argued that particle and

ozone pollution can cause health problems, including premature death

and an increased risk of asthma attacks.

Days when high levels of air pollution are recorded are problems

for people with ailments such as chronic bronchitis or asthma,

Selecky said.

“If they go outside -- especially if they’re children with asthma

that are physically active -- their asthma will flare,” he said.

Since a large amount of air pollution can be traced to vehicles,

Selecky advised people to avoid driving to places that are close

enough for a walk or a bicycle ride. Despite the persistence of air

pollution, he said the skies have gotten steadily cleaner.

“Pollution now is dramatically less than it was in the past,” he

said. “We don’t see that yellow haze every day that we would see 20

years ago.”