Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY -- The State of Utah formally acknowledged Wednesday three Wasatch Front counties are failing to meet federal health standards for ozone. It comes on the same day as a new study which proves, for the first time, that ozone pollution actually kills people.
Long-term exposure to ozone associated with increase risk of respiratory disease mortality
We don't have an ozone problem in Utah this time of year; it typically only spikes on a few hot afternoons each summer. But across the country, it may be responsible for thousands of premature deaths, according to a new study by researchers at BYU and several other major universities.
On a smoggy summer day, ozone results from interaction of pollutants, heat and sunlight. Scientists have long known it inflames respiratory tissue.
Now, a study by Dr. Arden Pope, a BYU epidemiological researcher, and other researchers has raised the stakes even further. Pope explained, "What this study asks is, ‘Does long-term exposure to ozone over a period of years, and even decades, increase the risk of respiratory disease mortality?' and the answer is 'yes'."
In other words, ozone raised the risk of death in 96 metropolitan areas. The study followed nearly 450,000 people for two decades.
The researchers found that people living in areas with the highest concentrations of ozone, such as the Los Angeles metropolitan area and California's Central Valley, had a 25 to 30 percent greater annual risk of dying from respiratory diseases compared with people from regions with the lowest levels of the pollutant. Those locations included the Great Plains area and regions near San Francisco and Seattle.
"This is the first time we've been able to connect chronic exposure to ozone, one of the most widespread pollutants in the world, with the risk of death, arguably the most important outcome in health impact studies used to justify air quality regulations," said study lead author Michael Jerrett, UC Berkeley associate professor of environmental health sciences. "Previous research has connected short-term or acute ozone exposure to impaired lung function, aggravated asthma symptoms, increased emergency room visits and hospitalizations, but the impact of long-term exposure to ozone on mortality had not been pinned down until now."
"Basically the higher the levels of ozone you're exposed to, the bigger the risk. And cleaning up the ozone substantially reduces the risk," Pope said.
Levels of ozone by region
Not surprisingly, highly populated regions such as the Los Angeles, Riverside and Houston areas, where the climate is sunny for much of the year and the air mass is relatively stable, had the highest average concentrations of ozone, ranging from 62.5 to 104 ppb. The regions with the lowest ozone levels had average concentrations of 33.3 to 53.1 ppb.
"Places like the Pacific Northwest and the Minneapolis St. Paul region are cooler and see more rain in the summer, which keeps the ozone levels in check," said Jerrett. "Similarly, the San Francisco Bay Area's infamous summertime fog blocks the sun and helps protect the region from high ozone levels."
Utah's ozone problem far less than many cities
Cleaning it up will soon be a legal mandate in Utah. On Wednesday, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. recommended to the federal Environmental Protection Agency that our most populous areas be declared "non-attainment;" in other words, "in violation" of new federal ozone standards.
Bryce Bird with the Utah Division of Air Quality said, "Once the EPA makes their final designations, the state will be required to develop state plans to meet that revised standard."
Utah's ozone problem is far less serious than many cities. Some have high ozone dozens of times a year.
In Utah it's usually only three to five days, often when smoke blows in from wildfires. And, as our cities have grown, our ozone levels have actually decreased.
Bird said, "Once we get newer vehicles in the fleet, they're so much cleaner than the old ones, that's when we see some real improvements in air quality."
But Pope said even occasional ozone is still a health threat. He said, "We'll get relatively high levels of ozone and, yeah, we should be concerned about that."
This study verified something other studies have shown: small particle pollution is an even bigger health threat than ozone. And we have that problem many more days a year, in the winter. The good news is, controlling one, should do a lot to control the other.
For an EPA list of where U.S. counties stand in compliance with the current federal ozone standards, click here.
E-mail: hollenhorst@ksl.com
