CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Eleven counties in West Virginia are included in the American Lung Association’s “State of the Air” Report, a report card that tracks exposure of Americans to pollution with rankings for most polluted and cleanest U.S. areas.
“There are passing grades all around for air quality in West Virginia,” said Kevin Stewart, director of environmental health, advocacy and public policy for the American Lung Association.
Measured was exposure to unhealthy levels of particle pollution and ozone in counties with air quality monitors over three years.
In the metro area that encompasses 16 counties in three states, the Charleston-Huntington-Ashland, WV-OH-KY area, the best year-round level of fine particle pollution was recorded for the 11th consecutive year.
The national air quality standard was met there for a seventh year.
Overall in the Mountain State, the worst grades were for ozone smog in Kanawha County and Ohio County with the grades of ‘C,’ while Greenbrier County and Monongalia County got As.
“That means they had no bad air days for ozone smog and that puts them among the cleanest in the country,” Haskins explained.
The ozone smog ranking represented an improvement for Kanawha County.
Elsewhere, “The Morgantown-Fairmont metro area, where Monongalia County is, was the 50th best for the year-round measure in particle pollution,” Haskins said.
The full report was available HERE.
Ozone and particle pollution are some of the most widespread air pollutants in the United States.
Nationwide, the report found nearly 150 million Americans were living in counties where air quality had diminished during the past three years and nearly half of all Americans were said to breathing unhealthy air in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
The American Lung Association has annually analyzed data from official air quality monitors to compile the “State of the Air” Report which the goal of educating people about the quality of the air they breathe.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Clean Air Act.
“We can’t take that law for granted. It is under threat and we want to make sure that it’s allowed to act the way the bipartisan folks that put that law into effect 50 years ago wanted it to act,” said Stewart.
“Also we know that air quality is not something that’s a given. Air quality is something that we continually must pay attention to.”
The report does not cover data from 2020 during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Generally, some studies have linked air pollution exposure to a greater risk of respiratory infection.
“Some very early evidence suggests that exposure to air pollution may make people more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection as well,” said Stewart.
However, he cautioned much more research was needed.