Kingsport Times News. May 1, 2024.
Editorial: Tri-Cities region lauded for air quality
For 25 years, the American Lung Association has analyzed data from official air quality monitors nationwide to compile its annual State of the Air report, and this year it demonstrates the progress Northeast Tennessee has made in cleaning its air of particulate matter and ozone.
The ALA says the Tri-Cities region is among the five cleanest urban areas in the nation, a far cry from 20 years ago. The other cleanest cities are Bangor, Maine; Lincoln-Beatrice, Nebraska; Urban Honolulu, Hawaii; and Wilmington, North Carolina.
The top five most polluted are Los Angeles-Long Beach, Visalia, Bakersfield and Fresno-Madera-Hanford, all in California, and Phoenix-Mesa, Arizona.
The 2024 State of the Air report reflects on air quality during the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. While many speculated that changes in behaviors during the pandemic such as working from home would result in improved air quality, the report shows that poor air quality continues to impact millions of people.
Notably, freight and goods movement on heavy-duty trucks, by rail and at ports increased significantly in some regions, adding to increased pollution burdens. In addition, wildfire smoke including from Canada presented a major and increasing threat to lung health during these years.
Despite that last summer the entirety of the Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia region experienced air quality considered unhealthy for sensitive groups by federal agencies, and some areas were considered harmful for everyone, the air improved dramatically.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow website, the Air Quality Index in Kingsport in July 2023 was 128. An AQI between 101-150 is considered unhealthy for sensitive groups.
The site attributed the poor air quality to smoke from ongoing Canadian wildfires.
The EPA reported that sensitive groups include people with heart or lung diseases, asthma, older adults, children and teenagers. Those groups were advised to avoid strenuous activities and spend less time outdoors, electing to be active when the air quality improves.
Areas with an AQI between 101-150 are marked on the AirNow site as orange. A small portion of Lee County, Virginia, near the Tennessee border was marked as red, which the EPA describes as unhealthy for all groups of people. That area extended into other parts of East Tennessee and Eastern Kentucky. AQIs between 151-200 receive the red designation.
Ozone and particle pollution peaked in the region in 2000 but has steadily declined since, to zero units. Today, the Tri-Cities metro area ranks as one of the nation’s cleanest places to live.
“Only five cities ranked on all three cleanest cities lists for particle pollution and ozone,” the report reads. “They had zero days high in particle pollution and in ozone and are among the 26 cities with the lowest year-round particle levels.”
The report states that all the other top cities also appeared on the list last year, but that “only Johnson City-Kingsport-Bristol, TN/VA, in its debut, was added to the list.”
Additionally, the Johnson City-Kingsport-Bristol, TN/VA metro area ranked at No. 25 in the “Top 25 Cleanest U.S. Cities for Year-Round Particle Pollution.”
The report also named the Johnson City-Kingsport-Bristol, TN/VA metro area as one of the “Cleanest U.S. Cities for short term particle pollution.”
Sullivan County was named as one of the cleanest counties for ozone air pollution as well as one of the cleanest counties for short-term particle pollution. This comes even as the region continues strong residential growth and its industries and businesses continue to thrive, a job very well done which makes for healthy living.
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