Houston's Ozone Pollution Is On The Rise

Houston's ozone pollution is on the rise, according to a study released on Wednesday by the American Lung Association. The State of the Air 2017, an annual report, puts Houston in the number 12 spot on the list of the nation's most ozone-polluted cities and, more troubling, found that the metropolitan area's ozone pollution had increased since 2016.

Ozone is a gas molecule composed of three oxygen atoms, and it's invisible. Often called smog, ozone can harm the lungs by reacting chemically with it. The ozone layer found in the upper atmosphere is beneficial, because it protects the earth from the sun's ultraviolet radiation, but ground-level ozone, which is produced when gases from tailpipes, smokestacks and other sources react with sunlight, poses serious health problems to humans.

Why is Houston's ozone pollution on the rise? Janice Nolen, the lung association's assistance vice president, said the cause for the increase is, well, up in the air.

“Sometimes the weather patterns can hold those pollutants in, can hold those particles in instead of letting them blow away, can add them to the area,” she said. “Or there may be a local event that contributed to it during this period.”

Nolen has in the past emphasized weather's role in the overall picture.

“The heat is one of the things that creates ozone," she told KERA. "It takes the emissions that come out of tailpipes and smokestacks and cooks them, and if you’ve got the same amount of emissions and not as much heat, you’re not going to have as much heat, with more heat, more ozone.”

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The news is not all bad, however, because overall, ozone levels are improving over the long term, thanks mainly to cleaner-running cars and more efficient power plants.

“Harris County had on average 23.3 days of unhealthy air for ozone [between 2013 and 2015], but in 1997-1999 the weighted average was more than 110 days on average, so it’s a big improvement," Nolen said, as reported by Houston Public Media.

The association stresses, however, that Trump Administration proposals to cut the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency could set back the improvements.

25 Most Ozone-Polluted Cities 2017
Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA
Bakersfield, CA
Fresno-Madera, CA
Visalia-Porterville-Hanford, CA
Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ
Modesto-Merced, CA
San Diego-Carlsbad, CA
Sacramento-Roseville, CA
New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT-PA
Las Vegas-Henderson, NV-AZ
Denver-Aurora, CO
Houston-The Woodlands, TX
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK
El Centro, CA
Fort Collins, CO
El Paso-Las Cruces, TX-NM
Redding-Red Bluff , CA
San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA
San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX
Salt Lake City-Provo-Orem, UT
Hartford-West Hartford, CT
Baton Rouge, LA
Philadelphia-Reading-Camden, PA-NJ-DE-MD
Sheboygan, WI
Chico, CA

Here are some suggestions from the American Lung Association to help you reduce pollution in your community.

Drive less. Combine trips, walk, bike, carpool or vanpool, and use buses, subways or
other alterna ves to driving. Vehicle emissions are a major source of air pollution.
Support community plans that provide ways to get around that don’t require a car, such
as more sidewalks, bike trails and transit systems.

Use less electricity. Turn out the lights and use energy-efficient appliances. Generating
electricity is one of the biggest sources of pollution, particularly in the eastern United
States.

Don’t burn wood or trash. Burning rewood and trash is among the largest sources of
particle pollution in many parts of the country. If you must use a fireplace or stove for
heat, convert your woodstove to natural gas, which has far fewer polluting emissions.
Compost and recycle as much as possible and dispose of other waste properly; don’t
burn it. Support efforts in your community to ban outdoor burning of construction
and yard wastes. Avoid the use of outdoor hydronic heaters, also called outdoor wood
boilers, which are frequently much more polluting than woodstoves.

Make sure your local school system requires clean school buses, which includes
replacing or retrofitting old school buses with filters and other equipment to reduce
emissions. Make sure your local schools don’t idle their buses, a step that can
immediately reduce emissions.

You can read the American Lung Association's State of the Air 2017 study here.

— Image: Shutterstock