This annual effort was released this week and relies on data from 2008, 2009, and 2010. In other words, it does not include last summer's horrific ozone season, the worst in five years, and the one that had Dallas taking away the title of worst air in Texas from Houston. Even without those numbers, air quality in the DFW metromess is ranked 12th worst in the country out of 277 metro areas, while Houston is ranked 8th. It also gives a pass to DFW on particulate matter, despite seeing levels that have been associated with strokes. This is because the metrics the ALA uses rely on federal standards - as long as you're above those standards, it gives you a passing grade. But now science tells us that those standards are not protective, so take these kinds of assurances with appropriate grains of salt. Look at the year-by-year charts for DFW pollution. The good news is that both ozone and PM levels started to fall dramatically around 2006-7 - perhaps as a result of the last semi-competent air plan that was implemented during this timeframe. Change is possible. We can find ways to clean the air when we want to. The bad news is that since that plan was adopted and carried out, there's been no follow-up by the state, and no attempt to reign-in the air pollution from the gas industry, which has almost doubled in the last six to seven years. This is why ozone numbers climbed last year and it's also why many of us predict that this summer will see no relief from our chronic ozone pollution. Next year's State of the Air report will not be as kind.  Read More

State Representatives Lon Burnam, Rafael Anchia and Roberto Alonzo, along with the American Lung Association, are sponsoring a DFW road show on either side of the Metromess next week on the important subject of Latinos and Air Pollution.  On Tuesday, March 13th, from 9:30 to 11:00 am at the Tarrant County Medical Society at 555 Hemphill in Ft.Worth, Adrianna Quintero of the Natural Resources Defense Council will discuss that group's recent report, "U.S. Latinos and Air Pollution: A Call to Action" on the disproportionate effect of air pollution on Latinos in the United States and what can be done about it. Frederick Lopez of The American Lung Association will discuss the ALA's report, "Luchando por el Aire: The Burden of Asthma on Hispanics" which looks at how asthma affects Latinos and what can be done to reduce and prevent it. Then from 12 Noon to 1:30 pm that same Tuesday, at the Center for Community Cooperation at 2900 Live Oak, the whole thing is being repeated for the benefit of a Big D audience.  In 2005 the CDC found that ER visits due to asthma were almost twice as high for Hispanics than for non-Hispanic Caucasians. These new reports should be able to update those kinds of trends and track existing disparities among US Latinos.Y'all come.   Read More

 EPA administrator Lisa Jackson has a young son with asthma. That's one of the reasons she was such a passionate advocate for new, lower, tougher standards for ambient ozone pollution, or smog, before the rug got pulled out from under her by the President and his campaign advisers last month. In a newly released report that would have served as a preamble to a new 70 parts per billion (ppb) ozone standard in the Federal Register, Jackson and the EPA had formally concluded that the existing standard of 75 ppb endangered thousands of Americans, including people with existing respiratory ailments like her son. The Bush-era limit on ozone was “not adequate to protect public health,” and failed to take into account "newly available evidence," according to the original EPA language. Such a report will be fodder for the new lawsuit filed by five environmental groups this week, which claims that the Administration's retreat from Jackson's recommendation was politically driven and not based on the best science. Meanwhile, because of the 2-year delay in setting a standard, chronic smog hotspots like DFW must now wait until close to the end of the decade to have any hope of getting safe and legal air to breathe.   Read More