American Lung Association’s ‘State of The Air’ Report Shows Drastic Improvements in Charlotte

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johson-c-smith-uptown-charlotteThe American Lung Association recently released their ‘State of The Air’ report with some good news for our state. The report showed North Carolina’s air quality continuing to improve in every category. State and federal laws that were enacted over the past 10 years have made the biggest impact on our air quality, but we still have plenty of work to do.

One of the biggest improvements our state saw was in the category of tiny air-born particle pollution. Charlotte is also now ranked as being one of the cleanest cities in America for ‘Short-Term Particle Pollution’, according to the report.

Ozone levels also saw a significant decline throughout our state, although the 12-county Charlotte region still has an average of four high-ozone days per year. That’s not bad, considering that we averaged 92 days per year when the report first started 18 years ago.

The report cites North Carolina’s Clean Smokestacks Act from 2002, required power companies to cut emissions from coal plants, as having one of the biggest impacts on our current air quality improvements.

The report was primarily based on data collected by the EPA.

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