Expect more smog alerts under new EPA standards

Mar 25, 2008 (Star Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- -- Some people don't need anyone to tell them when the air is unhealthy to breathe. Mary Ellen Lynch has trouble concentrating, her muscles ache and she has no energy. "It feels like I'm breathing in a fog," she says.

For Elizabeth Brantley, it means migraines that can last for days. For Teresa Chandler, it means a deep ache in her chest. "I can't get enough air," she says. "It just hurts."

Blessed with winds blowing across a flat landscape, Minnesota has some of the nation's cleanest air. Still, in the state's largest metro area, air quality is considered "good" less than half of the year. As scientists learn more about the health effects of the air pollution from smokestacks, tailpipes, small engines and even wood-burning stoves, they have set lower and lower limits for what's considered acceptable pollution.

"It isn't that the air is worse," said Rick Strassman, air monitoring expert for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. "It's that we know more about the health effects."

On March 12 the Environmental Protection Agency said it lowered the standard for ground-level ozone, or smog, citing scientific evidence that the pollutant is more harmful at lower levels than formerly believed.

In 2006 the EPA strengthened the daily standard for very fine particles such as soot and dust, which can infiltrate lungs and aggravate asthma and heart problems.

The two main air pollutants affecting Minnesota are the summer threat from ozone, created on hot, sunny days, and fine particles that accumulate in stagnant air during temperature inversions in winter.

Strassman said that with the standards now lowered slightly, the trigger levels for air quality health alerts will also be adjusted downward.

"Without a doubt that's going to result in more ozone alerts this summer," he said, perhaps as many as a dozen more, depending upon the weather. During the past five years the number of alert days each year has ranged from three to 13, he said, including both summer and winter pollution events.

The alerts are based upon a national air quality index, which reports daily conditions based upon data from monitors that sample the air. Index readings from 0 to 50 are considered good, 51 to 100 are moderate, 101 to 150 are unhealthy for sensitive groups and above 151 are unhealthy for all.

When the index tops 100, the alerts warn those who are elderly or who are very young or who have respiratory problems or heart ailments to postpone heavy exercise. They also advise otherwise healthy adults to limit exertion outdoors.

Last year the Twin Cities recorded 178 days with good air quality, 178 moderate days and nine unhealthy days.

The alerts are helpful to Brantley, a Maple Grove resident who works in downtown Minneapolis. "When there's an alert I drive in instead of taking the bus because that would involve time spent out at the bus stop breathing in air that might trigger a [migraine] attack for me," she said. "Within the past five years it has definitely worsened for me."

On air alert days, Lynch, who said she does not have asthma or other respiratory problems, exercises indoors. "I don't have a choice because otherwise my functioning mentally and physically deteriorates," she said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has reported that high levels of ground-level ozone have been linked with increased medication and emergency room visits by asthmatics, and higher hospital admissions the day after pollutant levels peak. An estimated 320,000 adults and 80,000 children in Minnesota have asthma.

As air quality monitoring becomes more sophisticated and as more data become available about human exposure, public health officials will be able to provide better guidance to the public, said John Linc Stine, director of the environmental health division for the Minnesota Department of Health.

"Certainly we don't want people to reduce overall physical activity, but they do need to pay more attention to environmental conditions," he said. On days with significant smog, he said, that includes not just the elderly and the very young, but people of all ages who work or exercise outdoors.

Kimberly Bouzguenda and two of her three daughters have asthma, and the Shoreview family already takes air quality health alerts seriously. Bouzguenda's 10-year-old daughter Isabel has learned to be more assertive in telling teachers and others that she needs to stay indoors when the air is bad. "She can tell very accurately what she's feeling and what her limitations are," Bouzguenda said.

Bob Moffitt, communications director for the American Lung Association of Minnesota, said that in addition to reducing their personal exposure, people can take action on both good and bad air days to cut back on driving, conserve electricity, skip wood fires, and minimize use of small engines. Improvements in cleaner fuels and more efficient cars have been beneficial, he said, but have been mostly offset by the increased number of drivers and longer commutes.

Tom Meersman --612-673-7388

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