Lung Assn. rates Bay Area's air quality
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer
San Francisco Chronicle
May 1, 2008
Like a white-gloved Marine testing Bay Area air for cleanliness, the American Lung Association
studied samples for soot and on Wednesday issued a reprimand - failing grades for San Francisco,
Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties.
Bay Area air, washed by strong onshore breezes from the Pacific Ocean, is often quite clean. But
due to periodic spikes of pollution - during those still air days that allow wood smoke and diesel
exhaust to accumulate - the three counties have drawn straight Fs for five years running. Those
grades are a measure of the number of days when fine particle pollution reaches unhealthy levels
during a 24-hour period.
Alameda County air, on the other hand, is showing slow improvement. It earned only a C for
sooty days in the most recent two report cards, but that compares to a D in 2006 and Fs in the two
prior years.
"These are mixed results, but we really should be doing better," said Linda Weiner, director of Air
Quality Advocacy for the American Lung Association of California.
The air quality report card also rates cities and counties throughout the United States for ozone
levels - smog. Although the region fares much better than Los Angeles, the smoggiest city in the
nation, Bay Area county ozone scores ranged from an A for San Francisco to Santa Clara's second
consecutive D.
"These grades are really important," said Weiner. "Particle pollution and ozone are very bad for
your health. Also, ozone and black carbon from soot have a contributory effect to the warming of
the planet."
So cleaning up that smog and soot not only is good for your health, but might help slow climate
change, she suggested.
Quality of air is as much a function of weather and geography as it is the behavior of those who
pollute it. Los Angeles residents burn the same fuels as San Franciscans, but the warmer air
stagnates in the bowl west of the San Gabriel Mountains, while strong Pacific Ocean breezes
regularly clean the air in much of the Bay Area.
Because those breezes slacken for days on end many times a year, smog levels and particulate
pollution in Silicon Valley too often can rival that of Los Angeles, clean air advocates say. And
they insist that Bay Area residents need to do more for their own good, and that of their
neighbors.
That is why the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has been holding public information
sessions on proposed rule changes to limit burning of wood fires during "Spare the Air Nights,"
said district spokeswoman Lisa Fasano.
"It is incumbent on all of us in the Bay Area to know that we all share the air," she said. "Finer
particle pollution lodges deep in the lungs, and it can reach into the bloodstream and effect heart
health."
Although the proposal to limit fireplace and woodstove burning met with strong public
opposition, Fasano maintains that much of that response was based on a misunderstanding that the
proposal was an outright ban. "We'll be asking people not to burn on the seven to 20 nights a year
in the winter season when the air is not moving around," she said. "And there will be exemptions
for people who have natural gas or wood as their sole source of heat."
The proposal faces another vote by the Air Quality Management District Board, followed by a
round of public hearings, before the rule would be implemented.
This year's report card on air quality in the Bay Area is part of a nationwide evaluation by the
American Lung Association, which bases its study on local reports submitted to the
Environmental Protection Agency. The Bay Area's soot problem has propelled it into the ranks of
the worst 25 regions in the country. Last year, it was the 15th worst region in the nation for that
category of air pollution. This year, it is 16th, just one notch better than Cleveland.
The American Lung Association's annual report card rates air quality on three major measures:
smog, sooty air days, and annual levels of particle pollution. The grades reported this year
actually represent a rolling average for pollution levels measured in 2004 through 2006. It takes
time to gather and analyze the information, and an average is used so that one usual weather year
does not skew the results.
Janice Nolen, vice president for national policy and advocacy at the association, said 125 million
Americans live in areas with unhealthful levels of air pollutants - counties that earned at least one
F.
One in 10 Americans - 30 million - live in the 18 counties nationwide that earned failing grades
on all three measures. "Straight Fs," said Nolen. "Their air is dangerous to breathe."
For a copy of the report, State of the Air: 2008: www.stateoftheair.org/
State of the Air: 2005-2008 comparison
Ozone: Smog Particle pollution: Soot
Note: DNC stands for data not collected
Bay Area county
Ozone
Ozone
Ozone
Ozone
Particle pollution
Particle pollution
Particle pollution
Particle pollution
2005
2006
2007
2008
2005
2006
2007
2008
Alameda
F
F
C
C
F
D
C
C
Contra Costa
D
C
B
C
F
F
F
F
Marin
A
A
A
A
DNC
DNC
DNC
DNC
Napa
A
A
A
A
DNC
DNC
DNC
DNC
San Francisco
A
A
A
A
F
F
F
F
San Mateo
A
A
A
A
D
B
B
B
Santa Clara
F
F
D
D
F
F
F
F
Solano
A
B
B
C
D
C
D
D
Sonoma
A
A
A
A
D
Source: American Lung Association
E-mail Sabin Russell at srussell@sfchronicle.com.
C
B
B