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American Lung Association: NYC’s air quality is improving, but still gets a failing grade
By
Rosemary Misdary
Published Apr 21, 2022
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Spencer Platt/Getty Images
By
Rosemary Misdary
Published Apr 21, 2022
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More than 22.5 million people are breathing bad air across New York City, Newark and its surrounding areas – and just over half are people of color.
These conclusions come from the 23rd annual State of the Air report released Thursday morning by the American Lung Association. It assesses human exposure to known hazardous pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter by analyzing nationwide data initially collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 2018 to 2020.
Despite the widespread failing grades, air quality in the New York City-region is improving. State of the Air once again gave failing grades to ozone levels in Manhattan, Queens, The Bronx and Suffolk county, but Staten Island managed to improve to a D.
The report defines the New York City metro region as including the five boroughs, Long Island, Rockland county, Westchester county, 12 New Jersey counties just across the Hudson River and three nearby counties in Connecticut. And it is the only urban area in the Northeast to rank on the list of the 25 most ozone-polluted cities. Too much ozone exposure is linked to negative outcomes during pregnancy and connected to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
But the good news is that particulate matter pollution continues to improve or stay stable. The counties of New York City earned A grades except for Manhattan which got a B. These letter grades were the same as the previous report, but there were small improvements in the underlying levels of particulate matter.
“Over the coming years, we're going to see the investment that New York state is making into clean and healthier,” said Trevor Summerfield, the New York director of advocacy for the American Lung Association. “All things considered in the Metro area, we found that year-round pollution levels in the New York-Newark Metro area improved to its best-ever level.”
Ozone needs to go-zone
While New York City ranks 14th in the nation for the worst urban areas for ozone pollution, the region has decreased the number of days of elevated ozone compared to last year’s report.
But reducing ozone is not a simple process, according to Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou, an environmental health sciences professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Ozone is very difficult to regulate because it’s not directly emitted into the atmosphere. The compound is due to the combination of high temperatures along with nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons — two types of pollutants emitted from fossil fuel power plants and gas-powered vehicles.
“Anything to cut traffic — electrification, congestion pricing, promote other means of transport,” Kioumourtzoglou said. “But it needs to be done in a way that ensures equitable reductions. The priority should be in protecting the most vulnerable populations, and then everyone benefits.”
The number of hot days over 90 degrees Fahrenheit could triple by 2050, as a result of global warming, a situation ripe for more dangerous days to breathe, according to Kioumourtzoglou. But Summerfield expects that the New York City-Newark region will continue to improve its air quality because of recent local measures. That includes New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which requires greenhouse gas emissions to be cut by 85% from 1990 levels across all sectors by 2050. The New Jersey version of this law — the Global Warming Response Act — calls for these air pollutants to be reduced to 80% below 2006 levels by 2050.
Both New York and New Jersey are also implementing the Advanced Clean Truck rule, which requires companies that manufacture vehicles heavier than 8,500 pounds to sell, lease or register only zero-emissions versions of these trucks by 2045. Gov. Kathy Hochul and the New York State legislature have also included electrifying school bus fleets in the 2022-2023 budget.
One very big culprit, according to Kioumourtzoglou, is fuel oil No. 4 — the residual substance left after gasoline and diesel has been extracted from crude petroleum. Collected from the dirtiest nooks at the bottom of barrels, fuel oil No. 4 is cheap and still used in some large pre-war buildings and ships. This oil carries a high amount of heavy metals such as nickel and vanadium, which are linked to cancer, according to Kioumourtzoglou. fuel oil No. 4 won’t be banned until 2030 in New York City.
Particles in the air
Even though the New York City-Newark area earned good grades on particulate matter, making it on the honor roll doesn’t mean the region is safe. Public health experts have stated there is no such thing as a safe level of this haze-causing pollutant. Even below the EPA-recommended limits, the health impacts persist, according to Dr. Joan Casey, an environmental health sciences professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
Particulate matter pollution (PM2.5) is a mixture of solid and liquid particles in the air. These pollutants are so small, a special microscope is required to see them. The number 2.5 refers to its size measured in micrometers, which is nearly 40 times smaller than a fine grain of sand. Most of these particles end up in the atmosphere from chemical reactions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which are emitted from airports, power plants, manufacturing facilities and gas-powered vehicles.
Read More: For NYC, the legacy of redlining is in the air we breathe
“PM 2.5 are very small, tiny particles that once we breathe them in, they can penetrate deep into the lung,” Kioumourtzoglou said. “It gets a very long list of adverse health outcomes because it's in the air we all breathe and it is such a ubiquitous exposure.”
These fine particles have been linked to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, hospital admissions, dementia and aberrant brain development during pregnancy, according to Kioumourtzoglou.
“We have the highest population density in the country and there are vehicles everywhere, especially stuck in traffic, idling, emitting a lot of NOx [nitrogen oxides],” Casey said. “It's going to be hard without going all electric to get levels down.”
The State of the Air report also highlights disparities that fall along racial and socioeconomic lines, as it relates to both ozone and particulate matter. In the metro area, the numbers haven’t changed much between the new report and the previous one. More than half the New Yorkers and adjacent residents at the highest risk from these pollutants are people of color.
“We've seen the relationship between redlining and adverse environmental exposure,” Casey said. “Where people can afford to live is related to the environmental quality there and the exposures they experience as well as comorbidities that they suffer from.”
Tagged
climate change
ozone
air pollution
american lung association
environment
air quality
Rosemary Misdary
Rosemary is health & science reporter. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 646-544-9524.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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