Smog: California cities in top four spots

Smog: California cities in top four spots
• Continued from Page A1

season, which runs May to September.

Los Angeles still ranks No. 1, followed by three other California cities and Houston. Atlanta ranked sixth; Charlotte, eighth; and Knoxville, ninth.

Tennessee had three other cities in the smoggy Top 25: Nashville, Memphis and Chattanooga, which is tied for 25th. North Carolina had two others: Raleigh-Durham and Greensboro-Winston-Salem.

Also making the list: Richmond, Va.; Baton Rouge, La., and Louisville, Ky.

"It is hard to find a Southern city that is not getting a failing grade in this report," said Paul Billings, a spokesman for the lung association.

The few bright spots: Perry County, Ky.; Montgomery County, Ark.; Williamsburg County, S.C.; Swain County, N.C.; Leon and Saint Lucie counties, Fla.; and Grant, Orleans and Ouachita counties, La. On an A-to-F grading scale, those counties received B's. Sumter County, Ala., received the region's only A.

The report is based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency monitoring over three years, 1997-1999, in more than 678 counties across the country. The association said nearly 400 counties failed.

Kay Prince, chief of the air planning branch at EPA's regional office in Atlanta, hadn't seen the rankings, but attested to the trend.

"You have huge amounts of growth in the Southeast, which increased vehicular traffic and demand for power," she said. With a warmer-than-normal climate in 1998 and 1999, conditions "were very conducive to ozone formation. You put it all together and you get some increased values."

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border, which attracts 10 million visitors a year, had a record 52 days of unhealthy ozone levels in 1998 and 48 days in 1999.

Ozone is formed when nitrogen oxides from burning fuel in power plants, heavy industry and vehicles mix with hydrocarbons in the air and cook in sunlight. The result is a colorless precursor to smog that can make breathing difficult, especially for the elderly, the young and those with asthma.

"No one state can fix the problem by themselves; no one utility can fix the problem by themselves," said Stephen Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

The EPA is requiring six Southern states—Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee—to develop their own plans for significantly reducing nitrogen oxide emissions by the summer of 2004. All have done so, though some are awaiting final approval.

The EPA is targeting large, stationary polluters—coal-fired power plants, cement kilns and other large boiler operations—because they provide the greatest emission

Ozone air pollution
Cities and counties with the worst ozone air pollution, based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency monitoring in 1997-1999, according to "State of the Air 2001" report by the American Lung Association released Tuesday. Previous year ranking in brackets.

Cities:

1. Los Angeles (1)
2. Bakersfield, Calif. (2)
3. Fresno, Calif. (3)
4. Visalia, Calif. (4)
5. Houston (5)
6. Atlanta (9)
7. Washington, D.C. (7)
8. Charlotte, N.C., Rock Hill, S.C. (8)
9. Knoxville (12)
10. Philadelphia, Pa., Atlantic City, N.J. (13)
11. Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, N.C. (17)
12. Sacramento, Calif. (10)
13. Merced, Calif. (10)
14. Dallas, Texas (14)
15. New York (16)
16. Nashville (18)
17. (tie) Phoenix (19)
18. San Diego, Calif. (6)
19. Pittsburgh, Pa. (21)
20. Lancaster, Pa. (22)
21. Redding, Calif. (15)
22. Memphis (23)
23. Richmond, Va. (Not ranked)

Counties:

1. San Bernardino, Calif. (1)
2. Riverside, Calif. (2)
3. Kern, Calif. (3)
4. Fresno, Calif. (4)
5. Tulare, Calif. (6)
6. Harris, Texas (8)
7. Fulton, Ga. (13)
8. Los Angeles, Calif. (5)
9. Rockdale, Ga. (14)
10. Anne Arundel, Md. (11)
11. Mecklenburg, N.C. (12)
12. Sevier (19)
13. Blount (25)
14. Ventura, Calif. (7)
15. Knox (18)
16. (tie) Camden, N.J. (21)
17. Wake, N.C. (24)
18. El Dorado, Calif. (17)
19. (tie) Douglas, Ga. (Not ranked)
20. Rowan, N.C. (Not ranked)
21. Kings, Calif. (9)
22. Imperial, Calif. (10)
23. (tie) Merced, Calif. (16)
24. Charles, Md. (Not ranked)
25. (tie) Prince George's, Md. (24)
    Denton, Texas (22)

cuts for the fewest dollars.

Still, it isn't cheap. The Tennessee Valley Authority will spend up to $1 billion installing 18 selective catalytic reduction systems at seven of its 11 coal-fired plants. Some considered among the dirtiest in the country are near Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville; Louisville, Ky., and Birmingham, Ala.

"It will allow us to reduce our nitrogen oxides emissions systemwide during the ozone season by 75 percent over 1995 levels," TVA spokeswoman Barbara Martocci said.

Several Southern cities now have mandatory tailpipe emission testing: Memphis and Nashville; Atlanta, Louisville, and North Carolina's three main metropolitan areas. North Carolina is expanding its program to about half its counties.

City rated
among
country's
smoggiest
Eleven Southern cities
are cited among the nation's
worst, including Chattanooga,
which is tied for 25th place.
BY DUNCAN MANSFIELD
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
KNOXVILLE — Increasingly,
that warm Southern breeze may
make you cough and wheeze.
Congested highways and coal-
fired power plants running at full
throttle to support a growing econ-
omy and expanding population are
creating Southern smog.
A report released today by the
American Lung Association shows
the 25 most ozone-polluted
cities are below the Mason-Dixon
line — four more than in 1999.
Most are metropolitan areas:
Atlanta, Knoxville and Charlotte,
N.C. made the Top 10. Chat-
tanooga was ranked 25th.
But even rural counties are suf-
fering near the Great Smoky
Mountains, where wind-borne pol-
lutants from hundreds of miles
away percolate in the hot summer
sun.
Tennessee's Sevier and Blount
counties in the Smokies are only
slightly less polluted than Geor-
gia's Fulton and Rockdale coun-
ties and North Carolina's Meck-
lenburg — all ranked among the
country's worst.
The American Lung Associa-
tion timed the release of its "State
of the Air 2007" report to mark the
beginning of the summer ozone