Tightened federal ambient air quality standards announced recently by the EPA will double the number of high-ozone days in North Carolina each summer, even though conditions are expected to be the same as in past years.
At least one air quality specialist questioned the reasons behind the Environmental Protection Agency’s move.
“The EPA is creating the appearance of risk at ozone levels that aren’t harmful. That’s how they maintain their power. The agency keeps people scared and becomes the savior from all these nonexistent harms,” said Joel Schwartz, an environmental consultant and visiting fellow for the American Enterprise Institute.
The EPA in March revised its primary and secondary eight-hour standard for ozone monitoring for the first time in 10 years, reducing the high-ozone threshold to 0.075 parts per million. The previous standard, set in 1997, was 0.08 ppm.
Ozone is formed when emissions from power plants, automobiles, and other sources mix with heat and intense sunlight. The N.C. Division of Air Quality monitors ozone by a five-color code system — green is the lowest, purple the highest. Code orange is the high-ozone threshold during which children and adults with respiratory diseases should limit outdoor exposure.
The changes by the EPA prompted DAQ to start issuing daily air quality forecasts two weeks earlier than usual. Agencies now begin tracking ozone levels April 15 since the revised standard means more days will meet the high-ozone classification. That translates into more code orange alerts.
“Statewide, we are estimating the new standards will double the number of code orange days, or maybe even more,” said Tom Mather, a spokesman for DAQ.
The EPA issued the new standards in response to scientific evidence on the health impacts of ozone, but Schwartz said the tightened standards create the illusion of risk at ozone levels that are not harmful.
“The EPA’s mission is to find harms and then save people from them. That’s why they exist,” he said.
Health impact
The EPA based its revised standard on the results of more than 1,700 new scientific studies that it claims prove that previous air quality guidelines were too lenient to protect public health. EPA officials said the changes will eliminate, in 2020, up to 2,300 premature deaths annually and generate $2 billion to $17 billion in health benefits.
“Those benefits include preventing cases of bronchitis, aggravated asthma, hospital and emergency room visits, nonfatal heart attacks and premature death, among others,” said an EPA statement on the guidelines.
Mather pointed to ozone’s impact on plants, crops, and trees, which the EPA said are endangered by high pollution levels. “Quite a bit of research over the last five or 10 years shows that ozone was causing problems at lower levels than previously thought,” he said.
But in a research paper published in October by the American Enterprise Institute, Schwartz said that data cited by the EPA to justify the new guidelines were unreliable. The old air quality standard was sufficient to protect public health and did not require revision, he said.
“We have a whole bunch of evidence that ozone at the low levels today isn’t harmful, but you have to look at all of the conflicts of interest in the system,” he said. “The EPA funds most of the health research to justify the need for its own existence, so the EPA decides what questions are asked, which scientists are funded, and which results are portrayed in official reports.”
Schwartz also questioned the health savings from the new standard. “These are phantom benefits. Their benefit analysis is way off and nobody outside the EPA believes it,” he said.
Falling ozone levels
Ozone levels are on the decline across the state and have been for several years, according to monitoring data from DAQ. In 2003 through 2006, North Carolina experienced relatively few exceedance days per season, with a record low in 2004 when the state saw only five high-ozone days across all monitors.
The trend is particularly evident in the Triangle, which had one code orange day in the summer of 2004, nine in 2005, and two in 2006. Even last year, when historic drought conditions and intense heat created ideal conditions for ozone formation, the Triangle experienced only five code orange days.
“It shows that we have been making progress,” Mather said. “The various regulations and controls have been a big factor, such as cleaner gasoline, stricter standards on car and truck engines, and the Clean Smokestacks Act.”
The revised standards, however, mean North Carolina is in for more high-ozone days even when conditions are identical to past years. By early May, the state had already experienced three code orange days, when in past years it was rare to have an exceedance day in April.
“In some areas of the country, you’re going to see a code orange most every day of the summer because of the standards,” Schwartz said. “Even though our air is cleaner now, the EPA continues to raise concern among the population and keep people thinking that air quality is continuing to get worse.”
Part of the rationale for approving the new benchmark was to keep the public concerned about air quality, Mather said.
“We do the forecasts for two reasons. One is so people in sensitive groups can take precautions. The other reason is so that when we’re expecting a bad air quality day, people can take action to counter that by bumping up the thermostat or reducing the amount they drive.”
David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.