Atlanta metro area named 67th worst for ozone pollution

ATLANTA — The American Lung Association released its 2024 “State of the Air” report, which covers air quality and pollution levels across the United States.

For the metro Atlanta area, the ALA said air quality was measured as the 67th worst in the nation, when it comes to ozone pollution.

The ranking is based on Fulton County’s “C” grade for unhealthy days due to air quality, which is due to a reported 1.8 days per year being deemed unhealthy, the ALA report said.

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“In the 25 years that the American Lung Association has been doing our ‘State of the Air’ report, we have seen incredible improvement in the nation’s air quality. Unfortunately, more than 131 million people still live in places with unhealthy levels of air pollution, and Metro Atlanta still has work to do,” Danna Thompson, Advocacy Director for the American Lung Association in Georgia, said in a statement. “Climate change is making air pollution more likely to form and more difficult to clean up. There are actions we can and must take to improve air quality, such as calling on EPA to set long-overdue stronger national limits on ozone pollution.”

Issues in the metro Atlanta area include ground-level ozone pollution and particle pollution, which ALA said could be “extremely dangerous and even deadly.”

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In Fulton County, ALA said despite the lower grade, year-over-year did see some improvement when it came to ozone pollution.

The “average number of unhealthy days—1.8 days per year, a ‘C’ grade, in Fulton County. This was better than the area’s ranking in last year’s report of 47th worst, with 3.2 days per year, a ‘D’ grade,” ALA said.

Additionally, when it comes to particle pollution, another metro area county, DeKalb County, saw minor improvements, though still retained a low rank.

The Atlanta metro area was ranked 48th worst for particle pollution last year, improving to 37th this year, according to the report. It was also ranked 124th worst for 24-hour particle pollution, according to ALA.

The ALA provided a letter grade for a dozen metro area counties. Here’s how they were graded for heavy ozone days and particle pollution, though data was not always available for both items:

• Chattooga County: A (High Ozone Days)
• Clarke County: A (High Ozone Days), B (Particle Pollution)
• Clayton County: A (Particle Pollution)
• Cobb County: B (High Ozone Days), A (Particle Pollution)
• Dawson County: B (High Ozone Days)
• DeKalb County: C (High Ozone Days), B (Particle Pollution)
• Douglas County: C (High Ozone Days)
• Fulton County: C (High Ozone Days), A (Particle Pollution)
• Gwinnett County: B (High Ozone Days), B (Particle Pollution)
• Hall County: A (Particle Pollution)
• Henry County: C (High Ozone Days)
• Rockdale County: A (High Ozone Days)

The metro Atlanta report is available here.

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