Officials can cut smog and soot to protect public health or risk federal sanctions, report warns

Greensboro-Triad residents breathe some of the worst air in the state every day, but state and local officials have the power to protect their health, according to Clean Air for the Triad Area: An Action Agenda. The report, released today by the Southern Environmental Law Center says people in the eight county region should look to their state and local leaders to address air quality through regional transportation and land use planning, and expanding on efforts to reduce industrial pollution. Without such measures, the Triad region risks legal sanctions, including the loss of federal highway funds and residents will continue to pay the price with their health, the report warns.

"Triad residents are breathing unhealthy amounts of soot and smog, which means that the air is often unhealthy to breathe not only in the summer months, but year-round," said David Farren, air quality attorney and author of the report. "Poorly planned development and increased driving are offsetting the benefits of cleaner cars. There is no silver bullet for these problems, but if Triad leaders use more of the weapons at their disposal, the air will get cleaner."

The Triad is the only major metro area in the state to violate federal standards for both soot and smog, the air pollutants that pose the greatest threat to human health. In April of last year eight counties in the region - Davie, Forsyth, Guilford, Alamance, Davidson, Randolph, Rockingham, and Caswell - were designated as failing to meet new federal health standards for ozone pollution, or smog. Then in December, the EPA identified Davidson and Guilford counties as also violating federal health standards for particle pollution, or soot. These "nonattainment" designations mean the region has until 2010 to manage particle pollution and until 2007 to address ozone pollution. Failure to do so will result in federal sanctions such as the loss of federal highway expansion money.

Ozone and particle pollution can aggravate asthma and trigger attacks. The American Lung Association estimates that 65,000 adults and 27,000 children in the Triad suffer from asthma and advises children and other high risk groups to avoid outdoor activity on high ozone days. Between 2001 and 2003, 17 percent of summer days in the region were deemed unsafe for outdoor play. Furthermore, particle pollution, which is a health risk year-round, has been linked to increased lung cancer deaths, irregular heartbeat, heart failure and premature death.

Much of the Triad's pollution problem can be attributed to development patterns which continue to foster dependence on cars for transportation. While the Triad's population is expected to increase by 50 percent over the next 25 years, development is consuming land at a a rate three times the rate of population growth. In two years these "mobile sources" of pollution are expected to be responsible for 70 percent of ozone-forming NOx emissions by 2007. Motor vehicles are also a significant source of fine particle pollution, as are power plants and other industrial sources.

The Triad has taken many positive steps toward curbing these health threats and meet federal clean up deadlines, such as improving regional transit service, committing to more pedestrian friendly communities and retrofitting or replacing diesel school buses. However, the report outlines a number of strategies to further improve the region's air quality such as coordinating its transportation and land use planning on a regional level to better gauge the impacts of major developments; making alternatives to single-occupant vehicles priorities in the region's transportation funding; and pushing for aggressive implementation of federal and state programs to reduce power plant pollution.

Clean Air for the Triad is the third in a series of reports the Southern Environmental Law Center has prepared for those areas of North and South Carolina with the unhealthiest levels of air pollution. Over the past several years, SELC has also worked to help bring the city of Atlanta into compliance with the Clean Air Act, through legal enforcement of transportation funding sanctions, and promoting policy changes in the areas of air quality, transportation and land use planning.