Smog pollutants in Eastern states decline sharply, EPA says

September 14, 2006|Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Ozone levels are falling sharply in Eastern states where smog has been a recurring summer problem, the Environmental Protection Agency said yesterday.

The improvement in air quality for a third of the nation's population is due to fewer emissions of nitrogen oxides from hundreds of coal-burning power plants, manufacturing, and other large facilities in 19 Eastern states.

Ozone occurs naturally in the stratosphere, where it is a shield against harmful ultraviolet rays. But ground-level ozone pollution caused by nitrogen oxides reacting with other chemicals produces smog . Other major sources of the pollution are motor vehicle exhaust, gas vapors, and solvents.

The EPA said in an annual report that nitrogen oxides from hundreds of power plants and other industrial sources in the East fell to 530,000 tons in 2005, an 11 percent decrease from 2004 and a more than 50 percent decrease from 1.2 million tons in 2000.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson called the improvement exciting. ``The solutions don't happen overnight," he said.

The EPA said 66 percent of the areas that in 2004 failed to meet national air-quality health standards now exceed those standards.

The program sets overall caps on allowable levels of pollution, then lets companies trade among themselves the rights to pollute up to that level.