Just Trying to Breathe

Have you ever felt like you couldn't breathe? Started coughing or wheezing without really understanding why? Well according to Spare the Air, you may have been experiencing symptoms related to air pollution. Depending on an individual's current health status and what the pollutant is will determine the severity of the symptoms, but the ability to breathe is crucial to all of us if we wish to survive.

A photo, by Allison Cook, of a map shown on the EPA's site. This map
depicts the air quality condition of different major cities in the state of Ohio.
A viewer also has the ability to zoom in and out to see other states and
countries'.  The level of concern, described later in this post, are important
to how one will be affected by the air quality.

The two pollutants that Spare the Air mentioned were Ozone and Particulate Matter (PM). Let;s start with ozone: while ozone is fine up in the atmosphere where it belongs, ground ozone can be very harmful to our health. It forms, primarily, from mobile vehicles emission of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which then react with ultraviolet rays coming from the sun. When exposed, the airways constrict which forces the respiratory system to kick into overdrive.

The Ohio EPA has several State Implementation Plans (SIP) that control the amount of the different air pollutants. SIP include everything from development plans that show how the certain areas that are not yet reaching the National Air Quality Standards will attain them, to plans that show how areas will maintain proper air quality.

The 2015 Eight hour Ozone Standard, according to the Ohio EPA, is 0.070 parts per million (ppm), which is .01 ppm below the original 1997 standard, and 0.005 ppm below the 2008 standard. The standards were lowered to these numbers, according to The Environmental Analyst, because studies released in 2008 were finding that healthy people's systems could mostly handle 0.060 ppm but this evidence had to be balanced against economic costs.

Now let's look at PM. According to Spare the Air, PM is a mix of soot, nitrates, sulfates, dust, smoke, metals, water and/or tire rubber. Some are direct exposures, such as smoke, while others are formed in the atmosphere, such as gas reactions like nitrogen oxides. Unlike ozone, PM's effects are more linked to the size of the actual particles than they are the amount in the air. The finer the particles, the greater the problem. This is because smaller particles are able to get deeper into the lungs and possibly into the bloodstream, therefore PM exposures are not just dangerous to one's breathing but also to their heart.

Before one can understand the SIP, they must understand there are two types of PM classifications. The first is known as PM10, also known as coarse dust particles, according to AirNow. PM10 are anywhere from 2.5 micrometers to 10 micrometers in diameter. As the name suggests, these particles are mostly in the form of dust and can come from roads or crushing or grinding activities. The other category is PM2.5, also know as fine particles, which are 2.5 micrometers or smaller in diameter. These can only be seen by using an electron microscope and are made from combustion (a variety of kinds from wood burning to motor vehicles to power plants). It is the latter type of particle that the EPA has a SIP for.

The 2012 Annual Standard for PM 2.5, according to the Ohio EPA, is 12.0 ug/m3, or micrograms per cubic meter of air. This is below the previous two standards: 1997's annual standard was 15.0 ug/m3, and 2006 had a 24-hour standard of 35 ug/m3. The 2012 standard came into effect on April 15th, 2015. The reason for the delay is the back and forth between what people can handle economically and what is necessary to protect people.

A few other SIPs listed on the Ohio EPA's website are Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, and Lead, as well as six other more industry-specific ones. This blog post will look at the first three listed.

Sulfur Dioxide only seems to have one SIP at the moment, according to the Ohio EPA. It is called the 2010 One-hour SO2 Standard. The standard is set to 75 parts per billion (ppb). This SIP appears to be still in the works, with Round 3 of the Statewide nonattainment area recommendation letter to the US EPA have been sent out on January 13th of this year.

Nitrogen Oxides appears to only have one SIP as well, and it is concerned specifically with Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2). The 2010 One-hour NO2 Standard, according to the Ohio EPA is 100 ppb. The US EPA had set this one-hour standard as well as kept the pre-2010 annual standard of 53 ppb. It is shown that Ohio is attaining these standards.

Finally, in 2008, according to the Ohio EPA, the US EPA changed the standard of lead from 1.5 microgram per cubic meter (μg/m3) to 0.15 μg/m3. It appears that there are a few areas in Ohio, including Cuyahoga County, Fulton County, and Logan County that had partial nonattainment areas. All three of these areas appear to have documents that state their plans to fix the problem. The effective date for Cuyahoga's and Fulton's plans were both in July 2015 and Logan's was in September 2014.

So now there are two questions that need to be answered: 1. How does the Ohio EPA get these SIPs? And 2. How's the air quality near me?

So, let's tackle the first question. As mentioned before, the standards are actually handed down to the states from the US EPA. The US EPA has something called National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). NAAQS originated from the Clean Air Act, according to the US EPA. The Act required the EPA to set these standards for pollutants that could be harmful to both the public'sand the environment's health. Within the NAAQS there are two types: Primary and Secondary. Primary standards are meant to protect the health of the more sensitive parts of our population, including children, the elderly and those with asthmatics. Secondary standards are meant to protect the public's welfare, including minimalizing damage to buildings, crops, and animals and maximizing visibility.

There are six "'criteria' air pollutants," according to the EPA, and they are: Carbon Monoxide (CO - under a primary standard), Lead (Pb - under both primary and secondary standards), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2 - one-hour standard is primary and annual standard is under both primary and secondary), Ozone (O3 - under both primary and secondary standards), Particle Pollution (PM - broken up by 2.5 and 10 and then broken further under 2.5 but overall both are under both primary and secondary standards), and Sulfur Dioxide (SO2 - one-hour standard is primary and three-hour standard is secondary).

We'll end by answering how the air quality is near you, the reader! The Ohio EPA has a document titled, "Air Quality and Your Health" which talks about the Air Quality Index (AQI) and also gives a link to a map which can show the viewer the real-time air quality for their town (or at least a city near them). Below the 5 big cities in Ohio are listed with the Air Quality Forecast for Sunday, March 26th, and Monday, March 27th. The embedded link on the city will take you to the page so you will be able to look at the current date's forecast. But first, we must understand the different colors which correlate to the levels of concern. Each color is given a word or two and a numerical value. The numerical value is supposed to correspond with the level of pollution.

Green is "Good" and is assigned numbers 0 to 50. If a city is shown green, then it is thought that there is little to no health risk.
Yellow is "Moderate" and is assigned numbers 51 to 100. If a city is marked yellow, then the quality is acceptable but there may be a small health concern for a small group of people who are unusually sensitive to pollution.
Orange is "Unhealthy (for Sensitive Groups)" and is assigned numbers 101 to 150. If a city has an orange mark it is only a concern for those in sensitive groups (i.e. children and elderly), but the general public should be fine.
Red is "Unhealthy" and is assigned numbers 151 to 200. This marking means that everyone is at risk to experience health problems.
Magenta is "Very Unhealthy" and is assigned numbers 201 to 300. These cities have emergency level conditions and the whole population is even more likely to experience health problems.
Brown is "Hazardous" and is assigned numbers 301 to 500. There is a health alert and the effects are much more serious.

A photo, by Allison Cook, of the chart pictured in "Air Quality
and Your Health," as described above.

The numbers and categories listed are each city's predicted high for each day. These forecasts are off of AirNow.

Cincinnati's AQI for March 26th is 60, which falls under moderate. March 27th's is a little bit higher at 65, but still falls under moderate. The pollutant which seems to be pushing these numbers is PM, which match the AQI's for the city.

A photo, by Allison Cook, of the map shown for Cincinnati on AirNow's site.
As one can see, this area is colored yellow, or moderate, for March 26th.

Cleveland's AQI for both March 26th and the 27th are just shown as being good.

A photo, by Allison Cook, of the map shown for Cleveland on AirNow's site.
This area is colored green, for good, for March 26th.

Columbus's AQI for March 26th is 50, which falls under good. March 27th's is a little lower, meaning it is still marked good, at 46.

A photo, by Allison Cook, of the map shown for Columbus on AirNow's site.
The area surrounding the capital is colored green, for good, on March 26th.

Dayton's AQI for March 26th is 53, which falls under moderate. March 27th's is a little bit higher at 57, but remains under moderate. Like Cincinnati, it appears to be the PM that is driving the city's AQI to be moderate.

A photo, by Allison Cook, of the map shown for Dayton on AirNow's site.
This area is colored yellow, or moderate, on March 26th.

Youngstown's AQI for March 26th is 50, which is good. March 27th's is slightly lower at 46, and falls under good as well. It is important to note that Youngstown is not given an exact mark on this page.

A photo, by Allison Cook, of the map shown for Youngstown on AirNow.
Youngstown is not specifically marked on here, but the city is located SE of
Cleveland and NE of Columbus. This area of the map is green, or good, on
March 26th.