Los Angeles holds the dubious distinction of being the smoggiest city in the U.S., according to a new report from the American Lung Association.
It’s not exactly an unexpected result; LA has topped the list in 19 of the 20 years since the association began releasing the annual report.
More alarming is that Los Angeles’s air quality got worse since last year’s report.
The analysis draws data from three years (2015 to 2017), gathering average ozone levels from that time period. In that period, LA County averaged 119 days per year during which ozone, or smog, was at unhealthy levels. In last year’s report, the county averaged 111 unhealthy days.
Air quality was actually worse in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, which are lumped in with Los Angeles for the study’s city rankings. Those counties averaged 161 and 130 ozone days, respectively.
The negative effects of smog go beyond obscuring views from the Griffith Observatory. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, ozone can cause permanent lung damage, make asthma attacks more likely, and can even heighten the risk of early death for those exposed to high levels.
The LA area fared slightly better when it came to particle pollution, which can be aggravated by a range of sources—from diesel engines to vacuum cleaners. In terms of short-term particle pollution, when the level of harmful particulate matter in the air spikes for a brief time period, Los Angeles ranked seventh among cities affected by these temporary hazards.
Longer term levels of particle pollution in Los Angeles were high enough to place the city fifth on that list. It was one of six urban areas in California to rank among the top ten.
Particle pollution, which can trigger heart attacks, strokes, and asthma attacks, can be especially exacerbated by wildfires, which have plagued California in recent years.
In the Los Angeles area, fires caused air quality levels in some parts of the region to twice hit “maroon,” the most severe level on the EPA’s Air Quality Index. Smoke from the massive Thomas Fire likely contributed to a major deterioration in air quality around Santa Barbara during the period analyzed in the report.
The region went from one of the cleanest urban areas in last year’s report to the 17th-most polluted this time around.
Since this year’s report doesn’t include data from 2018, it’s likely that California will fare poorly again in next year’s analysis. Major fires throughout the state triggered air quality warnings in the Bay Area and Southern California.
Comments
I guess it’s time to implement the Green New Deal #AOC
By LAwastheplace on 04.24.19 12:13pm
This but unironically.
By Partymuscles on 04.24.19 4:29pm
Seriously
By Necco on 04.24.19 9:22pm
The shortage of housing forces commuters to travel longer distances to work. Thus contributing more to pollution.
By cerealbox760 on 04.24.19 12:49pm
Many thanks to ConcernedCitizen1950 and all our resident car addicts for this tremendously dominant two-decade title run.
We’re number one! We’re number one!
By disqusted on 04.24.19 1:12pm
nice try you silly wanker. it’s not 1955, automobiles are NOT the leading cause of smog in los angeles: https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-la-smog-petroleum-20180215-story.html
By Ｇｈｅｔｔｏ Ｕｒｃｈｉｎ on 04.25.19 8:53pm
It would be helpful to see what would happen with significant changes. How much would things change if all autos were to switch to electric? There would still be manufacturing, etc. But it would be helpful to see what actions would lead to significant reduction in poor air quality. My suspicion is that due to geological formation of the L.A. basin, you will always have some sort of haze—even if it’s just water vapor.
By surfnspy on 04.24.19 1:13pm
There was always haze in the LA Basin. The Native word for LA is Valley of Smoke.
Trucks are a big contributor to smog. We are probably quite a few years from any real dent due to electric cars and trucks.
By LA Denizen on 04.24.19 1:58pm
Yes, numerous articles on the Internet. From Gizmodo:
A blanket of haze hung over the land that would become Los Angeles on October 8, 1542, when Spanish sailors entered San Pedro (or perhaps Santa Monica) Bay and made the first written observations of the Southland. This early air pollution so impressed the the sailors and their captain, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, that they named the area "Baya de los Fumos, or "Bay of the Smokes."
By Necco on 04.24.19 9:16pm
Natural haze: good.
Purple haze: really good.
Car pollution haze: bad.
By disqusted on 04.25.19 3:10pm
Natural Haze?
By Necco on 04.25.19 7:49pm
Chemtrail haze: super bad
By LastFirst on 04.26.19 8:28pm
Never reported: Two-stroke engine leafblowers not only emit hydrocarbons and noxious carbon monoxide at a rate far greater than a Ford F-350, but make every bit of dust on the ground airborne. If LA refuses to enforce its ban on leaf blowers, at least compromise with req’s for electric or battery powered blowers.
By Cleavon Little on 04.24.19 3:06pm
100% with you on this.
By disqusted on 04.24.19 3:32pm
Thank you for actually saying "100%." If I hear one more person say "110%," or worse…
By Necco on 04.24.19 9:24pm
I agree with you 110%
By Honest Bruin on 04.24.19 11:50pm
Lame.
By Necco on 04.25.19 8:27am
I agree, and it’s easy to call for in theory… But electric and battery powered blowers are a lot weaker than gas, and take more time to clear an area effectively. Tell some poor gardener who’s squeezing in 8 gigs a day that he’s going to have to lose 1 or 2 of those gigs in order to use the slower blowers. Then tell his wealthy clients that they’re going to have to pay this guy more to offset the money he loses by working more slowly. You’ll find people would rather save 20 bucks than save the planet. And LA doesn’t have the resources to enforce any of this anyway.
By mtkscat on 04.24.19 4:23pm
Why not? They sure seem to be able to enforce parking violations (ignoring the handicap placard debacle, of course).
Maybe I am off base year and cleaning crews actually do clean yard waste once in the street, but most of the time, it seems the blowers are only used to push debris into the street and off private property. Someone else’s problem.
By Brentwood 4 Life on 04.24.19 4:27pm
The whole issue is that the leafblowers are pointless. They just blow dust into the air.
By SC310 on 04.25.19 8:46am
Carson was joking in the 70s, about people in LA chasing a single leaf across the lawn for an hour.
By Necco on 04.24.19 9:18pm
Maybe this isn’t a large contributor to overall air quality or lack thereof, but the troubling new "trend" I see on the streets is people idling in the cars on the curbs, doodling on their phones 9 times out of 10 of course. Not very pedestrian friendly to pollute the sidewalks with exhaust and engine noise and probably not a tent pole of the "Great Streets" initiative. This habit is especially curious in Los Angeles where extreme temperatures are rare.
By Brentwood 4 Life on 04.24.19 4:38pm
A lot of the idlers tend to be uber/lyft drivers too, from my observation. Idling waiting for new riders I’m assuming.
By SC310 on 04.25.19 8:48am
Electric cars will not save us. The batteries they use contain rare earth metals mined by child slaves (if that sort of thing bothers you) and their extraction, additionally, is environmentally devastating. The process of manufacturing automobiles — electric or fossil fuel burning — also comes at a massive environmental cost.
We already have the nation’s second-largest mass transit network (appropriate for the nation’s second largest city) as well as geographic and weather conditions ideal for active transit. It would be great if we replaced parking minimums with mandatory green roofs and started planting street trees on all of the sidewalk dead squares… More greenery, more walking, more cycling, and more taking mass transit are what will improve air quality.
By Eric C Brightwell on 04.24.19 5:54pm
Switching to EVs for all ground transportation is 100% necessary to improve this situation.
Simply put, as long as we have roads there will be cars and trucks. And, those need to be electric to remove smog and other pollutants.
I’m all for public transit, rail, busses, road diets, cycling, waking, telecommuting, partial work weeks, etc. But, we also need the cars that are here to be electric.
Pitting EVs against public transit is a fools battle that only benefits the status-quo and big-oil’s domination of our lives.
Norway just reported a 14%+ DECLINE in gasoline and diesel sales year-on-year. And, that it just the start. We can do it as well. This is what will save us.
By Intractable on 04.25.19 11:59am