State Of The Air Report Flawed?

Air pollution has been declining for decades. So how did the American Lung Association's 2003 report get the numbers so wrong?

1 minute read

May 12, 2003, 12:00 PM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen

"Here's how: Many counties monitor ozone at several locations because pollution levels vary from place to place. Taking Los Angeles County as an example, ozone could be high one day in Glendora and then high the next day in Santa Clarita, 50 miles away. In this situation, the report counts two bad-air days for the entire county, even though people in Glendora and Santa Clarita each experienced only one such day, and the other 8 million people in the county enjoyed clean air on both days.Thus the report manages to claim Los Angeles County averages 35 bad air days per year, even though a direct inspection of the EPA monitoring data shows that Santa Clarita - the worst location - had 25 elevated-ozone days per year, while the average location had just seven elevated days - 80 percent less than the report claims."

Thanks to Preserving the American Dream Listserv

FULL STORY: Pollution report plays numbers game

Wednesday, May 7, 2003 in Los Angeles Daily News

Environment United States

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