City News

Mayor Seren's Introduction to Air Quality Awareness Week

DAY 1, MAY 1, 2023--Today marks the beginning of the US EPA’s Air Quality Awareness Week, and this year’s theme is “Working Together for Clean Air.”

Each day this week, we will highlight important issues related to air quality that affect our country – and Cleveland Heights – in unique and urgent ways.

Air quality is both a climate issue and a health issue. Poor air quality has been a public health crisis facing our entire community for decades.

Polluted air affects the health of people who have asthma and COPD and increases the likelihood of heart attacks and strokes.

Children and older people are particularly vulnerable to its effects.

Poor air quality is not a new thing for NE Ohio. We have come a long way since the smog-filled days of the 1970s.

But Cuyahoga County, along with Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, Geauga, and Summit Counties, is in non-attainment for the EPA’s 8-hour ozone measurement.

In fact, our air quality has recently worsened. Last October, we moved from ‘marginal’ to ‘moderate’ non-attainment.

This means we are not meeting acceptable healthy levels of air quality as measured by six criteria pollutants:

• Carbon Monoxide
• Lead
• Nitrogen Dioxide
• Ozone
• Particulate Pollution (PM2.5 and PM10), and
• Sulfur Dioxide

Today’s Air Quality Awareness daily theme is “Wildfires & Smoke.” NE Ohio is largely spared from wildfires happening in our region, but we aren’t spared from the effects of smoke. In recent years, smoke drifting from California, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana has become a regular occurrence during the summer and early fall months.

We also face local air quality threats from fires, like the Schulman plant explosion in Bedford Heights last February.

Source: Aaron Josefczyk/Reuters

If you want to know more about the air you’re breathing, check out AirNow.gov to see what the United States Air Quality Index (AQI) looks like for our area.

We will be back tomorrow with more important information about Air Quality and your health.

Thanks!

-- All Are Welcome --

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