City low in study of ozone-death link

A hero's welcome

Wounded GI returns home

By DANIEL JACKSON
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD

Cpl. Corey Webb flipped through his scrapbook Tuesday, then stopped to look at a picture taken Aug. 12, the day he left with his Marine Reserve unit for Iraq.

"Look at my arms. I was about twice as strong as I am now," Webb said, noting he lost 40 pounds while recovering from an accident in Fallujah on Aug. 21 that left him pinned beneath a Humvee.

Marine reservist Corey Webb greets his niece, Brianna Willis, on Monday at the Birmingham International Airport.
Mike Kane/Post-Herald
Marine reservist Corey Webb
greets his niece, Brianna Willis,
on Monday at the Birmingham
International Airport.

After almost a dozen surgeries, Webb's left leg was amputated below the knee during the first week of September, and he has been in physical therapy ever since.

Webb, 22, who returned home to Springville on Monday for the first time since the accident, said he has started to work out again to rebuild his former physique, but deep in Webb's blue eyes there is a strength that has not diminished.

In those eyes, there is the courage that prompted him to join his reserve unit soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the determination that had him using a prosthetic leg to walk a month after surgery and the love he shares with his family and friends, who have been constantly at his side since he returned.

His girlfriend, Sisily Worthington, his sister, Holley Willis, and his parents, Don and Valle Webb, spent several days with him at

City low in study of ozone-death link

By TAYLOR BRIGHT
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD

A new study has found ozone can be related to death, according to a report published in one of the country's most prestigious medical journals.

The report, published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, draws a parallel between deaths and spikes in ozone levels across the country.

Birmingham has exceeded government ozone standards for the past 30 years. The researchers studied 95 cities, comparing days when the ozone level rose dramatically and the number of deaths in those cities.

Of the 95 cities, Birmingham had the seventh-lowest correlation of deaths and increase in ozone levels. The study covered 40 percent of the U.S. population.

"It's fairly definitive that ozone is taking lives," said David Reynolds, a Birmingham doctor who often speaks out about health and air quality issues.

The study, done between 1987 and 2000, concluded ozone can "adversely affect public health" in a short period of time.

"Our findings, interpreted in the context of the already extensive epidemiologic and toxicologic evidence on ozone toxicity, indicate

"It's so obvious," Reynolds said.

that this widespread pollutant adversely affects mortality, in addition to other health effects that have been associated with ozone," according to the report completed by researchers at Yale University and Johns Hopkins University.

"We're talking about a serious study with lots of authenticity to it," Bell said.

The researchers estimated the short-term effects of ozone accounted for 3,767 premature deaths in the country annually.

Sam Bell, a meteorologist with the Jefferson County Department of Health, said the report would add weight to the dangers of ozone.

"Ozone is probably a more dangerous pollutant than we thought," Bell said.

Ozone, a pollutant that forms in the air, is made of emissions from power plants and cars. The pollutant has dogged Birmingham since the days of booming steel industry. With one exception, it has never met the government's air standards for ozone.

In the study, the city fared better than most of the others. New York had the highest number of deaths during the ozone spikes, estimated at 319.

"We do fare better than most other cities, but we show a link between mortality and ozone," Bell said.

Michael Sznajderman, a spokesman for Alabama Power Co., said the company would spend $2 billion between now and 2010 on pollution controls for its plants.

Environmentalists often point to the company as a major contributor of the emissions that make up ozone.

"We acknowledge that ozone is a health issue, and we're working on that," Sznajderman said.

Sznajderman also said the company was trying to clean up its plants, which burn coal to provide electricity, by putting controls that would limit emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, the two chemicals which contribute most to ground-level ozone.

"We acknowledge we are part of the problem but we will be part of the solution," he said.

Automobiles also are significant contributors to ozone.

Reynolds said he would like to see more efforts to reduce commuting times and see more public transportation to reduce

ne.

"It's so obvious. Why is it not being done? Astonishing," Reynolds said.

Ulla-Britt Reeves, an environmentalist with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in Wilmington, N.C., said more needs to be done to control the pollutants and done sooner.

"It's alarming that we need to find out pollution kills people before we do anything about it," she said.

Tree lot owners dreaming of a green

Christmas

"We're kicking off our fun old-fashioned family Christmas by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh to embrace the frosty majesty of the winter landscape and select that most important of Christmas symbols."
— Clark Griswold

By STEPHEN SISK
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD

Billy Howell remembers his first Christmas tree as a married man.

"When my wife and I were first married, I went to buy a Christmas tree and I think I paid $35 for it," Howell said. "This was in 1982 and I thought 'Boy, that was expensive. Somebody is making some money doing this.'"

Michael Isbell of Birmingham, left, and David Kinney of Gardendale unload North Carolina Frasier firs.

The following year, Howell and his business partner Allen Langston bought about two dozen trees to sell to earn a little extra holiday cash.

Howell Christmas Trees is now in its 22nd year, and the number of trees sold each year has increased from 25 the first year to close to 2,500 in recent years.

With the height of the holiday shopping and decorating season only a few days away, workers at Howell's three locations and at other tree lots are making preparations to assist families in