According to a recent report, a decade of cleanup measures to reductions in emissions have paid off in cutting levels of deadly particle and ozone pollution. (Photo courtesy of the NREL)
A new report finds some of the cities with the worst air pollution are breathing a little easier. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A new report finds some of the cities with the worst air pollution are breathing a little easier. Lester Graham reports.
The American Lung Association’s annual “State of the Air” report uses the latest data from 2006, 2007 and 2008. That’s just before the economy really tanked. Janice Nolan is with the American Lung Association. She says even though factories were still running at full tilt, improvement in air quality was seen across the nation. Particularly in cities the group watches closely.
“We’ve tracked some of the 25 most polluted cities each year to see how they’re faring and in each case we saw significant improvement in most of the cities in those twenty-five.”
Nolan says cleaner diesel fuel and new less polluting trucks… along with some improvements at coal-burning power plants helped. But she says other dirtier coal-burning plants and older diesel trucks continue to pollute the air.
In August, the EPA put air samplers outside of 63 schools in
22 states.
(Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)
The US Environmental Protection Agency
is wrapping up a 60-day initiative
looking at toxic air pollution around
schools. They’re looking to gauge the
health effects linked to pollution exposure.
Many of the schools were chosen based
on how close they were to heavy industry.
Gigi Douban reports:
Transcript
The US Environmental Protection Agency
is wrapping up a 60-day initiative
looking at toxic air pollution around
schools. They’re looking to gauge the
health effects linked to pollution exposure.
Many of the schools were chosen based
on how close they were to heavy industry.
Gigi Douban reports:
It’s pretty much a given: put a school near heavy industry and an interstate, and those
kids are going to be breathing polluted air. What the EPA didn’t know was just how
polluted it would be. So the agency in August put air samplers outside of 63 schools in
22 states. One of those schools is Lewis Elementary in Birmingham, Alabama.
(sound of calling out names for carpool)
As he does every day, Richard Gooden is waiting in the carpool line to pick up his
granddaughter, who attends pre-K at the school. Not far away, near the basketball
court, there’s an air pollution monitor. Gooden, for one, was glad it was there. Living
up the hill from the American Cast Iron Pipe Company, he’s seen thick layers of dust
settle on his windows.
“I got a little white house with vinyl siding, and you can’t tell there’s vinyl hardly
because of the dirt coming from that pipe shop.”
Gooden has lived in that house for 43 years. His granddaughter spends most days
there, and he worries about her health and his own.
“I had a triple heart bypass a while back. I’m just wondering is that air completely
clean to breathe.”
The EPA plans to have some answers. In Birmingham, the Jefferson County Health
Department is collecting the data on the EPA’s behalf. Corey Masuca is the county’s
senior air pollution control engineer. He says they’re screening for about 100 different
pollutants.
“We looked for them, then, we found them.”
So far, he says, only three of those – benzene, manganese and acrolein – were found
at high levels. Most concerning, acrolein levels were more than 100 times higher than
what the government considers safe. Where does it come from?
“Pretty much any type of combustion source – whether it’s combustion coal, or
fuels from a plant, or fuel from a car. It even emanates from cigarette smoke, so it’s
fairly ubiquitous.”
But ubiquitous doesn’t mean safe. In fact, excess exposure to manganese can cause
brain damage. Acrolein can damage the lungs, and benzene is a carcinogen.
Masuca says the findings aren’t a major cause for concern. But Janice Nolen,
Assistant Vice-President for Policy and Advocacy at the American Lung Association,
disagrees.
“The fact that it’s in lots of places doesn’t mean it is not a big problem. It means
that we have a lot of things that we need to clean up.”
And when it comes to schools, she says, industrial pollution isn’t the whole picture.
Diesel buses drive right up to the school doors every day. Inside schools, poor
ventilation and even things like some glues can lead to health problems.
Yet there are definite links between these air toxins and heavy industry. So Masuca, of
the Jefferson County Health Department, says just knowing what’s out there is a huge
first step. Next they’ll come up with ways to reduce exposure. Things like having kids
stay indoors during recess on days when pollution levels seem to be highest.
Janice Nolen of the American Lung Association hopes monitoring will lead to stricter
controls on nearby industry. And maybe spark even a little bit of self-regulation.
“Letting people know about what’s in the air often raises public awareness and
causes industry to rethink what they’re doing and come up with less toxic ways to
produce their products.”
She says this research can galvanize communities into action. Most of the parents I
spoke with at Lewis Elementary didn’t know a thing about the EPA’s monitoring
program. But perhaps once the EPA gathers long-term data on schools across the
country in the months to come, that will change.
Processing tar sands crude creates more air pollution than normal. (Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory)
American gasoline refineries are
expanding to process a dirtier kind
of oil. Shawn Allee reports
one company’s plans hit a snag:
Transcript
American gasoline refineries are
expanding to process a dirtier kind
of oil. Shawn Allee reports
one company’s plans hit a snag:
The BP fuel refinery in Northwest Indiana wants to process more Canadian tar sands oil.
Processing tar sands crude creates more air pollution than normal. The federal
government wants more air pollution figures from BP before signing off on an air
permit.
Groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council pressed the government to step in.
The NRDC’s Ann Alexander is glad BP’s tar sands project is getting scrutiny.
“If tar sands are going to be developed, we think it’s it’s critical they be developed in
a way that complies with the Clean Air Act, because the Clean Air Act is there to
make sure it’s not the community that pays for development of tar sands through
increased pollution and the health problems that result, but that it’s BP who pays
those costs.”
BP’s tar sands oil project in Indiana is just one of several going on in the Midwest.
This is a mock-up of what the proposed label would look like (Photo courtesy of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)
Back in 2007, Congress told the
National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration to come up with
new fuel efficiency labels on tires.
Mark Brush reports on when we might
see those labels in tire shops:
Transcript
Back in 2007, Congress told the
National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration to come up with
new fuel efficiency labels on tires.
Mark Brush reports on when we might
see those labels in tire shops:
It’s been 2 years, and the government is still working out how to get this labeling program going.
Right now, if you walk into a tire shop, it’s hard to compare tires on how fuel efficient they are. There’s no official standard yet.
But that should change soon. The new tire labeling program is expected to roll it out in the next few months.
Dan Zielinski is a spokesman for the Rubber Manufacturers Association. He says they support a labeling law because it’ll help competition.
It could give tire makers something to brag about.
“’It will be an incentive to say ‘my tire is better because,’ or, ‘my range of tires here are better because.’ It offers the consumers better performance on certain criteria. And I think that will drive the market even before the consumer demand does.”
A more fuel efficient tire will only get you a couple of miles per gallon more. But, put those tires on the 200 million cars and trucks driving the roads these days, and that could add up.
Matthew Grocoff says a whole house fan gives the same comfort as you would have with an air conditioning system.
(Photo courtesy of Greenovation TV)
Energy efficiency is on the mind
of a lot of homeowners. They’re
starting to question everything
about their homes, even the need
for air conditioning. Lester
Graham met with some homeowners
and an energy-efficiency expert
to talk about a different approach
to cooling a house:
Transcript
Energy efficiency is on the mind
of a lot of homeowners. They’re
starting to question everything
about their homes, even the need
for air conditioning. Lester
Graham met with some homeowners
and an energy-efficiency expert
to talk about a different approach
to cooling a house:
For some people, air-conditioning just feels a little unnatural. I mean, it’s a refrigerated room, right?
There are older ways of cooling a house that are cheaper and use a lot less electricity.
Matthew Grocoff is with Greenovation TV. His website suggests all kinds of ways to make homes more green.
We met at a house in a tree-lined neighborhood of century-old homes in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
(sounds of house and stairs)
He wanted to show me an idea that’s like throwing open the windows and pulling in a cool summer breeze.
It’s called a whole house fan.
Grocoff: “We’re at the home of Jacinta Beehner and Thore Bergman. Thore actually installed this fan himself. It cost about $250 – about $9500 less than the quote that they got to install an air conditioning system in their house. And, this summer, they have not had to turn on their window units at all.”
Now Thore is not a carpenter. He’s a university researcher who studies monkey vocalizations. But, he decided he’d try to install the big fan in his ceiling on his own.
Bergman: “It was fairly easy. It took a couple hours. The tricky thing was – we have an older house that had layers of plaster and wood in the ceiling. So, cutting through that to make the hole took a little more work that it might in some houses. But it wasn’t too bad.”
Beehner: “I have to admit, I didn’t really believe that maybe he could install it himself. And yet, he did a great job. And I am the biggest fan of the whole house fan.”
Grocoff: “So, you’ve got the Beehner-Bergman fan club here. And this is interesting, because the goal, for most homeowners, is to get the house to a comfortable 72 degree temperature. And, it’s kind of strange that when it’s 65 degrees outside, and it’s 80 degrees inside your house, that we’re turning on an air conditioning unit when the air outside is actually colder than the air conditioning unit.”
(sound of fan turning on)
Bergman: “One drawback is the noise. Which, we’ve gotten used to. We kind of like it for sleeping – it blocks some of the street noise. We’re standing right underneath it, and it’s kind of hard to talk.”
Beehner: “But, we also have a baby. So the whole house fan serves as white noise, which really helps us move around upstairs while he’s asleep.”
Grocoff: “Those people who are not looking for that white noise sound, like Jacinta and Thore are for their baby, they’re going to be able to get something that’s quieter, more efficient, more insulated, that’s going to be virtually silent, at the higher price points.”
There have been some surprises along the way.
Jacinta says, you have to keep in mind – anything in the night air will be drawn into the house.
Beehner: “One night, we actually did turn it on, and within about one minute, our entire house was filled with the smell of skunk.
Grocoff: “So, if you’ve got really good, deep skunk smell, you know the fan is working. Another possible drawback is, with the air, you’re bringing in any kind of dust, pollen, anything else like that.”
But, Grocoff says, overall, this big sorta-box fan in the ceiling really pulls the hot air out of the house and pulls the cool air from outdoors into the house.
Now, these fans don’t work everywhere.
If you live in an extremely humid area, or a region where it never really cools down at night or in the morning, it might not be a good fit.
But for areas that enjoy cooler mornings and evenings in the summer, Grocoff says this is a good alternative.
Grocoff: “With a whole house attic fan, you’re going to get the same comfort as you would with an air conditioning system. But, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, the cost for running an air conditioning system is 20 cents to 30 cents every hour that you have that turned on. For a whole house attic fan, you’re talking about a penny to a nickel an hour.”
There are all kinds of designs besides the big box fan types.
You can go to a home improvement store, your heating and cooling installer, or do some research online at greenovation.TV or just type in whole house fan in Google. You’ll find plenty of places wanting to sell you there version of a newly popular old idea.
According to a recent report, a decade of cleanup measures to reductions in emissions have paid off in cutting levels of deadly particle and ozone pollution. (Photo courtesy of the NREL)
