Ozone Air Quality

[lbs5015]

First off let me say I'm not at all an environmentalist type, I do enjoy the outdoors, Mountains, Nature Etc. but I wouldn't consider my self a tree hugging hippie. I'm all for most development and economic growth to a point.

I Kind of find it funny with the cities "Breathe Easy" campaign then all these Hazardous Ozone level warnings when the temp reaches 90. Where it isn't safe for sensitive groups to enjoy the outdoors. I know the campaign is unrelated I just found it funny.

My point is, with all this development etc. what happens if the levels go even higher? I mean I love Greenville, I've only lived here for 10 months. I think its an incredible place with so much going for it. They talk about an excellent "quality of life" but how can it be a quality life with poor air quality? Hopefully technology can help out and apply "scrubbers" and other equipment to better clean the manufacturing that is booming here. I realize you can't have your cake and eat it too. but there has to be a happy medium. Any thoughts, Ideas? regulate vehicle emissions? ban brush burning? regulate manufacturing chimneys? Or am I way out of line thinking in these terms?

[btoy]

My understanding is that there is only so much we can do locally, that much of the air quality issues we see is actually created in Atlanta, travels up this way and then is trapped in Greenville by the mountains.

[goodbye]

Today's extremely hazy condition is totally abnormal - as has been this entire year's weather pattern thus far. We are once experiencing the drifting smoke from those massive wildfires in Georgia and Florida. It is a strange phenomenon I have never experienced in my lifetime here in the Upstate.

[StrangeCock]

I seem to remember a REALLY bad couple days of smoke about 15 years ago. But I think that was from a huge fire in the mountains of Tennessee.

[goodbye]

I seem to remember a REALLY bad couple days of smoke about 15 years ago. But I think that was from a huge fire in the mountains of Tennessee.

[lbs5015]

I seem to remember a poor air quality warning in April when we had that couple days of 90+ temps. And that was before the wildfires started. I also remember a couple warnings last summer. So there are warnings when there are no wildfires. The 90+ temps are enough to "cook" exhaust fumes etc.. to create a warning without the help of wildfires.

You can go here and see information on Ozone Warnings they also have archives of previous warnings, if anyone is interested:

http://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow....l&CityID=92

[gs3]

From everything I gather, much of the ozone problem is attributed to the mountains and the dam of air.

For cleaner air though, cities around the nation could put many programs in place (Greenville included). I know some cities in the mountains, with high percentages of homes with wood burning fireplaces, have enacted ordinances to keep wood burning fireplaces out of new construction. Obviously mass transit is an area where much impact could be made (another thread on that). Continued planting of trees and greening of the area would help as would ordinances banning developers from clear cutting for new neighborhoods. Lots of opportunity out there to clean up our environments, not sure many city / county / state governments ever look at the whole picture from an environmental angle.

[wheatie]

The air quality in Greenville as deteriorated quite a bit since I was younger. The American Lung Association recently published their 'State of the Air' report for 2007, and Greenville did not grade well for particle pollution (an F). The report covers ozone as well, but no data was available for Greenville County. While some of the pollution is indeed imported from other areas (i.e. Atlanta, Charlotte, and TVA coal plants), Greenville can look within its borders for blame as well.

Check out the report. http://lungaction.org/reports/stateoftheair2007.html