WASHINGTON – U.S. counties that are home to nearly 100 million people appear to flunk federal air standards because of microscopic soot from diesel-burning trucks, power plants and other sources, the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday.
The EPA said a preliminary analysis showed that 243 counties in 22 states – almost all in the eastern third of the nation and in California – may have to take additional measures to curb pollution to meet the standards by 2010.
EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt cautioned that the designations are preliminary and some counties may be taken off the list after further discussions with state officials. A final designation of areas in noncompliance will be made in November.
Leavitt called the need to reduce airborne microscopic soot – particles in some cases 28 times smaller than the width of a human hair – “the single most important action we can take to make our air healthier.”
He said soot-filled air annually causes 15,000 premature deaths, 95,000 cases of chronic or acute bronchitis and thousands of hospital admissions because of res- piratory or cardiovascular illnesses.
The EPA in 1997 issued tougher standards for soot, for the first time regulating particles as small as 2.5 microns. But because of lengthy litigation finally resolved in 2002, the agency has yet to implement the requirements or even officially designate what areas violate the standard.
The designations made public Tuesday were characterized as the initial agency step to putting states on notice as to which ones likely will have to submit additional pollution control plans.
Leavitt said federal requirements being phased in to reduce sulfur in gasoline and diesel fuel; requirements for cleaner trucks; and programs aimed at curbing interstate transfer of pollution from power plants will go a long way toward meeting the soot air standards.
But he acknowledged that states with counties in noncompliance may have to take additional steps such as modifying transportation plans or requiring new pollution controls when factories expand. Other measures could include restrictions on wood stoves and open burning, or retrofitting school buses with improved emission controls, he said.
The largest concentrations of counties in noncompliance were along the urban corridor from New York City to Washington D.C., eastern Tennessee, in the Ohio River Valley region and counties surrounding the urban centers of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis and Atlanta.
The Los Angeles Basin and interior central California also face significant soot air quality problems as does a small corner of northwestern Montana – one of the few strictly rural areas cited by the EPA. Leavitt said the county had dirty air because of pollution from mining activities near Libby, Mont.
The EPA designations went well beyond a list of counties that states submitted to the agency in May. The governors listed 141 counties with a population of 79 million people as being in noncompliance. The EPA added another 102 counties.
Leavitt said many of the counties were added because while they may have air that meets the soot standards, they also have sources of pollution within their borders that contribute significantly to adjacent areas failing the standard.
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