For the first time since the federal 1990 Clean Air Act ushered in the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, Georgia has met all federal air quality standards, according to the state Environmental Protection Division’s most recent annual air monitoring report.
However, much of North Georgia, including Athens, and some areas further south would fail a new, stricter federal standard for a kind of air pollution called “fine particle pollution,” or PM2.5.
PM2.5 includes liquid and solid particles 2.5 microns in diameter or smaller. A micron is one-millionth of a meter; for comparison, human hair ranges in diameter from about 50–70 microns. Such tiny particles can penetrate deep into lungs with serious health consequences like increased heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and both chronic and short-term respiratory illnesses. Reducing PM2.5 pollution could even reduce rates of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, according to researchers at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the new standard could prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths and 290,000 lost workdays annually.
Levels of fine particle pollution in the Southeast have decreased by 48% since 2000, according to the EPA, and nearly that much nationwide. Ozone and other forms of air pollution have also declined. But that’s not enough to adequately protect human health, according to the agency and to health groups such as the American Lung Association, which highlighted PM2.5 pollution in its latest annual “State of the Air” report.
The EPA finalized a new standard for annual average PM2.5 pollution in February: 9 micrograms per cubic meter of air, down from the old standard of 12. Six of Georgia’s PM2.5 monitoring sites wouldn’t pass the new standard, including the one in Clarke County, according to the State of the Air report. Besides Athens, monitors in Albany, Atlanta, Warner Robins, Augusta and Sandersville—about halfway between Macon and Augusta—are also recording PM2.5 levels above the new standard, according to the American Lung Association report.
Climate warming models predict PM2.5 levels are likely to worsen somewhat in the future, in part because we will see more huge forest fires like those that have ravaged western U.S. states and Canada in recent years, sending PM2.5 levels soaring hundreds of miles away as the smoke spreads. The tiny particles come from many sources besides forest fires, mainly related to some kind of fuel burning—dusty construction sites, mining, tire rubber eroding on highways, power plants and diesel engines, among others.
In Georgia, controlled burns in forestry and agriculture—some of it to promote ecosystem health and prevent larger forest fires by removing undergrowth fuel—account for nearly a third of the state’s PM2.5 production, according to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.
The earliest anywhere would enter into so-called “nonattainment” for continually exceeding the new limit is 2032, according to the EPA. Until then, the new standards could go away, depending on political winds. More than 100 Republican members of Congress have called on the EPA to roll back the new limits, saying they are unnecessary and too costly. In a press release, Republican 1st District Rep. Buddy Carter of Pooler called the new standard “a death knell for vital U.S. industries, including manufacturing and timber.” Georgia is the third-leading timber producer among U.S. states.
Any nonattainment zone with Athens in it would likely include much of North Georgia, including metro Atlanta. Air doesn’t recognize county boundaries, and when Athens has high pollution levels, it’s usually because the city is under a shape-shifting blob that affects many more counties than Clarke. Under nonattainment, the state would have to develop a plan to reduce PM2.5 levels.
Warner Robins, Sandersville and Albany would also flunk the new PM2.5 standard, as would Augusta-Richmond County, which in recent years has suffered some of the highest PM2.5 levels in the nation, and the worst of any Southeastern city. The State of the Air report ranked Augusta 15th on a list of U.S. cities with the highest PM2.5 pollution, a couple of slots above No. 17 Birmingham, AL. Most of the cities with the highest PM levels are in western states, with Bakersfield, CA., topping that list.
Augusta also has the distinction of being the Southern city with the fastest-warming winter temperatures among large cities, getting hotter by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit per decade, according to a recent analysis by Harry Stevens of the Washington Post’s Climate Lab.
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