Posted on 08/26/2006 10:21:17 AM PDT by UB355
Ozone alerts plummet this summer Just 3 days hit hazardous levels, down from 21 By LEE BERGQUIST lbergquist@journalsentinel.com Posted: Aug. 25, 2006
Despite hotter-than-normal temperatures this summer, Wisconsin has been hit with only three days when ozone pollution exceeded unhealthy levels. Advertisement
In a surprising twist, Milwaukee County barely squeaked in with one day of polluted ground-level ozone, otherwise known as smog. Waukesha County didn't register a single day.
Yet in Ozaukee County, with fewer cars and factories, there were two such days of unhealthy air.
This summer's ozone readings are down sharply from last year, when there were 21 such days, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.
Ten Wisconsin counties from Kenosha to Door are currently in violation of a health-based standard for ground-level ozone, and state officials are working on regulations that will bring the state into compliance by 2010.
It's this year's drop and other trends that are being applauded by a state business lobby, which says Wisconsin doesn't need additional regulations to limit ozone.
While there is sharp debate over how to clean up air pollution, there is little disagreement about how ozone is formed:
It is heavily influenced by weather patterns and high temperatures.
National Weather Service figures show that the summer of 2006 has been warmer than average. But average high temperatures this year are slightly below last summer. A fickle pollutant
Perhaps more significant, state air regulators say, is the fact that ground-level ozone itself is a fickle pollutant.
Over the course of a day, it is pushed and pulled by prevailing winds, intensified by high temperatures and sometimes weakened by other chemicals in the air.
If you were to look at it with time-lapse graphics, such as the type created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ground-level ozone swirls like a drop of gasoline in water.
Ground-level ozone is created by a mix of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. The pollutants come primarily from vehicles and industrial sources.
When it hits the threshold, regulators decree that the air is unhealthy, especially for people with respiratory problems, active children and active adults.
If it is early enough in the day, the DNR issues an alert to warn the public to limit exercise and other strenuous outdoor activities, said Bruce C. Rodger, acting air monitoring section chief with the DNR.
"Sometimes the weather sneaks up on you, and you can't issue anything," Rodger said.
Ozone typically causes problems during warm summer days when winds come from the south, he said. During this summer's hottest weather in late July, winds actually came from the north, where there is less pollution, according to Rodger.
The "absolutely ideal" conditions for ozone to cause problems occur when a high-pressure system over the eastern United States pushes winds south, ultimately arcing north, carrying other regions' pollution with it, he said. Rural areas beat out city
So why are counties such as Door and Ozaukee registering higher readings than Milwaukee?
Rodger said sometimes it is simply a matter of chemistry: Nitrogen oxide emissions from cars and factories cancel out ozone levels for a time, depleting them where there is heavy vehicle traffic and a lot of industry, but as prevailing winds from the south carry the smog north and temperatures rise, ground-level ozone rises again.
From the perspective of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state's largest business lobby, ozone pollution has improved enough that no further regulation is needed for Wisconsin to meet EPA standards for 2010.
It uses DNR data showing what Scott Manley, environmental policy director for business group, calls a "glide path" to meeting the standard.
Regulations now coming online that will ratchet down pollution from utilities and diesel vehicles will enable Wisconsin to meet standards.
"We strongly oppose 'Wisconsin-only' add-ons to the federal rule that would impose a more costly regulatory burden," Manley said.
But Bruce Nilles, an attorney for the Sierra Club, said utilities need to spend millions of dollars more to install pollution control equipment that will reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.
"We have made progress from 30 years ago," he said. "But the reason we made progress is because of all of the things that WMC fought for 30 years."
The DNR is using computer modeling to see what kind of new regulations might be needed.
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce says the modeling has been flawed in the past.
But until a new model analyzes the ozone trends, the DNR says it is unsure whether additional regulations on business are necessary. From the Aug. 26, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
I'm sure this will the reason to hire more EPA types.
To figure out why things are getting better.
OH NO! This is a major plank in the environment-as-a-religion types creed. But, since much of this is accepted as faith and counter to the facts, it probably won't make much difference to them.
Al Gore throws a temper tantrum in his private jet...
These idjits can't even bring themselves up to the level of a maroon! Ozone is O3- three atoms of Oxygen. How can three atoms of oxygen be made up from "a mix of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides". Ozone is created by UV light in the upper atmosphere (mostly) and combines with pollutants, neutralizing said pollutants.
But until a new model analyzes the ozone trends, the DNR says it is unsure whether additional regulations on business are necessary.
More from the "global warming computer modelers"! The EPA has to make work to justify it's budget and expand it's overreaching powers. One of the ways it does this is by proclaiming ozone to be a "pollutant" and from that point using bogus science, questionable measurements and off-the-wall computer modeling to justify and enforce onerous "regulations" that have the force of law- yet haven't ever been legislated by any elected lawmakers.
I fully understand that the chemistry of ozone in air is different than it is in water or other substances, but these entrenched bureaucrats are the same ones that give us the "global warming", "glaciers melting", "spotted owls dying" krapTM. Like the NYSlimes, once you lie about one thing, everything else you say/do is suspect. The EPA has been lying all the time and causing ungodly high economic costs on us, all to justify their existence and increase their power.
The DNR is using computer modeling to see what kind of new regulations might be needed.
The most frightening series of words that a Wisconsinite could possibly hear.
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