American Lung Association Faults Environmental Protection Agency for Ignoring Deadly Particle Pollution in Five U.S. Cities in List Released Today

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Lung Association faults the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for leaving five U.S. cities off its list of those required to take immediate action to reduce particle pollution in the air. This deadly omission puts public health in the following metropolitan areas at considerable risk: Houston, Texas; Augusta, Georgia; Columbus, Georgia; Greenville, South Carolina; and Fairmont, West Virginia. In addition, EPA left many individual counties off the list despite the impact of emissions from those counties on pollution in metropolitan areas.
Particle pollution is typically a mixture of ash, soot, diesel exhaust, chemicals, metals and aerosols. It can trigger heart attacks and strokes, and cause irregular heartbeats, lung cancer and premature births. Breathing particle pollution year-round can shorten life by one to three years. The five cities omitted from the EPA's list all showed unhealthy year-round levels of fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5. In its list released today, the EPA only identified counties and metropolitan areas that experience unhealthy spikes in particulate matter pollution over the course of a 24-hour period.
The Clean Air Act requires that the EPA officially notify all localities with documented unhealthy levels of particulate air pollution so that leaders can begin to make necessary changes.
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