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Air quality reality may differ from common perception |
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Tuesday, 29 May 2007 |
 Active Image | Shanel Boston | The Appalachian
Cars sit in traffic at the U.S. 321 and 105 Ext. intersection. Despite popular belief, air pollutants have dropped 54 percent since 1970.
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by JILLIAN SWORDS
Intern Staff Reporter
During the past several years, one has only had to read a paper or turn on the news to become convinced of the worsened state of our nation’s air.
In a recent informal poll, 78 percent of Appalachian State University students thought that air quality in America has significantly worsened in the past 10 years.
On the surface, this assumption makes sense.
Since 1980, Americans have nearly doubled the number of annually driven automobile miles.
In Boone, the
King Street and N.C. 194 intersection alone will see an extra 25,000
cars per day by 2030, Ed F. Lewis of the North Carolina Department of
Transportation said.
Lewis said this
increase is largely due to a new high school that is to be built
southeast of the N.C. 194 and U.S. Route 421 intersection.
However, the National Center for Policy Analysis gives a somewhat different take on this information.
Because of a law
originally adopted by the Clinton administration in 1999 that the Bush
administration implemented in 2004, all cars 2004 and newer have 90
percent reduced emissions compared to all older cars.
Joel M.
Schwartz, a national environmental consultant and visiting fellow of
the American Enterprise Institute, said there were dozens of other laws
such as the Clean Air Interstate Rule and the Clean Air Mercury Rule
that will slash emissions from power plants by 75 percent in the next
25 years.
These laws will also reduce pollution from industrial centers and consumer product plants.
“Pollutants have
been reducing steadily for the past several decades, regardless of who
was in [presidential] office,” Schwartz said.
According to
Schwartz’s December 2006 policy report for the NCPA, between 1980 and
2005, lead air levels dropped 96 percent, sulfur dioxide reduced 63
percent, and carbon monoxide concentrations fell 74 percent.
In addition, fine particulate matter was reduced 40 percent. Soot, nitrogen oxide and organic compounds decreased too.
In 2006, there were no code red ozone days.
Schwartz said 10
to 15 years from now the newer cars will be 90 percent cleaner than the
increasingly cleaner cars today. Also, because of the constant turnover
of cars, society is approaching near-zero emission vehicles.
With regards to
the increased traffic Boone will see in the next 25 years, Lewis said
the more the traffic is kept flowing, the less affect it will have on
the air.
Plans for widening lanes and intersections, inconvenient though they may seem, can actually help the environment.
Dr. Howard S.
Neufeld, an Appalachian biology professor who specializes in air
pollution, said due to the area’s geography, Boone’s air pollution
blows over to the Piedmont.
Neufeld said,
likewise, much of the air pollution Boone receives is blown in from
areas like Asheville, the Smoky Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley.
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