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Community Outreach |
Jim Needham
Dean, Community Outreach
Personal Information
Gretchen Arnold
Director, Pollution Prevention Partnership
Personal Information
P3 Main Page
Air quality in Corpus Christi is usually quite good. In fact, Corpus Christi can be proud of
the fact that we are the only industrial based city in the United States that is still in
attainment of air quality standards established by the United States Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). Here are some common questions and answers about ozone and our
local air quality.
What is ozone?
Just remember ... "good up high - bad nearby."
Children who live near streets traveled by more than 20,000 cars a day are six times more
likely to develop cancer than those who live in quieter neighborhoods, where local traffic is
less than 500 vehicles per day. Through its lifetime, a typical car will dump 34 tons of carbon dioxide and 300 pounds of
smog-forming pollutants into the atmosphere. The average well-maintained car emits 33 pounds of pollution every 100 miles. Cars that are not well maintained can emit approximately 5 times that amount. The average stop sign in the US causes an average of 20 tons of carbon dioxide to be added to the
atmosphere yearly. The US population uses about one billion gallons of motor oil /yr, 35% of which ends up
in environment... If one in four people commuted just 5 miles a week on a bicycle, the air would be spared of
6.7 million tons of carbon dioxide. One person using transit for a year instead of driving alone to work spares the environment
from 9.1 pounds of hydrocarbons, 62.5 pounds of carbon monoxide and 4.9 pounds of nitrogen oxides. Half of U.S. cities fail to meet Environmental Protection Agency standards for another
car-emitted poison, ozone, which also causes human diseases and crop losses upward of $5 billion. Today's automobiles are less polluting than older models but there are more of them on the
road now than ever before. Carpool whenever possible. Organize errands into one motor vehicle
trip, not several. Keep your car in good working condition. Maintain proper tire pressure. Don't
top off the gas tank. Walk, ride a bike, or use public transportation. Shop by phone, mail, or
Internet. 40 percent of all trips in the United States are 2 miles or shorter. More than 25 percent of all
trips are under a mile in the United States. So walking or riding a bike would save the air. In only one hour of use, a gas-powered lawn mower can create the same amount of pollution
as a car driven for 340 miles! Recreational motor boats, personal watercraft, and off-road vehicles all burn gasoline, which
contributes to ozone depletion. Off road motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles produce 118 times
as much smog-forming pollutants as modern automobiles on a per-mile basis. A typical watercraft
operated for seven hours pollutes as much as a 1998 vehicle driven more than 1,000 miles. Deodorants, hair spray, cleaning products, and air fresheners are just a few examples of
commonly used items containing smog-forming chemicals, and are widely used and create 22 tons
of air pollution every day. Keep the tops closed on all paints and solvents and store them in airtight containers. Select
products that are water-based or contain low amounts of VOCs. Paint with brushes and rollers.
Use an electric or manual lawn mower. Use a propane or natural gas barbecue. Pollution sources can include things like dry cleaners, gas stations, and auto body paint
shops, commercial buildings (heating and cooling units; surface coatings), residential buildings
(fire places; surface coatings), fuel combustion in non-road machinery, boats, railroads, and even
the family lawnmower or barbecue grill. Waste disposal in the form of open burning, landfills and
wastewater treatment also cause pollution. Over half of the United States population lives in areas which have unhealthy levels of either
ozone or particle pollution. Exposure to ozone damages or weakens textile dyes and fibers, and some types of paint and
coatings. Ground level ozone ruins rubber products like windshield wipers and tires, shortening their life by 25%. In the environment, ground-level ozone compromises the growth, reproduction, and overall health of
plants and trees. 4.5 million people have their health 'adversely affected' by air pollutants each year. Some research has estimated that people living in the most polluted U.S. cities could lose
between 1.8 and 3.1 years because of exposure to chronic air pollution.
Is ozone good or bad?
I hear a lot about ozone numbers and ozone levels.
What do the numbers mean?
What is an attainment area?
What is a non-attainment area?
What is an Ozone Action Day?
What Should I do on an Ozone Action Day?
(A) Ozone is the result of a chemical reaction that happens when vapors (called VOCs) are
released into the air and mix with pollutants from engines (called NOX or nitrous oxide)
in the presence of sunlight. The vapors, or VOCs, come from things like gasoline, paints,
paint thinner, etc. The pollutants called NOX come from engine combustion in power plants,
compressors, and vehicles.
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(A) Actually, ozone can be either good or bad, depending on where it is located. Stratospheric
ozone is ozone that is high in the sky and located from about 10 miles high in the sky to
about 30 miles high in the sky. This ozone is good ozone. It protects us from the sun's
harmful ultra violet rays. Tropospheric ozone or ground level ozone is ozone that is located
from the ground up to about 10 miles high in the sky. It is also known as smog. This smog or
ozone is bad ozone because it is a pollutant and we breathe it. It can cause lung damage as
well as damage to crops and vegetation. Although animal life is effected by toxic ozone levels
it seems that plants are more sensitive to ozone than animals. VOC emissions result in toxic
ozone levels during the prime growing season.
(A) Ozone levels are measured continuously by
two TCEQ monitors
located in our area. These levels are measured in parts per billion and this is the number
that is reported. Levels of ozone or numbers of 0-50 are good and should not be a concern. Levels
of 51-100 may afffect sensitive people such as asthmatics, children, and the elderly. Levels
of 101-150 are unhealthy for these sensitive groups. Levels of 151 and above are very unhealthy
for all people.
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(A) Attainment means an area is "attaining" an air quality standard that is within acceptable
standards established by the EPA. Corpus Christi is considered by the EPA to be an "attainment"
area. By being in attainment, that means our area's ozone numbers fall below 85 ppb over a
three-year period.
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(A) A non-attainment area is an area that does not have good air quality and is not within EPA
standards. Their ozone numbers are above 75 ppb over a three-year period. Once an area is
declared to be non-attainment, strict rules may be placed on the area, much like what
Houston is experiencing. These rules may include costly vehicle inspections, losing money
to build highways, businesses not being allowed to expand, restricted hours for construction
activities, etc.
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(A) Ozone Action Days are days that are called by TCEQ. TCEQ meteorologists predict the
possibility of an ozone action day, much like local weather personnel predict upcoming weather
conditions. Weather conditions that are indications of an ozone action day are high
temperatures and light winds. On ozone action days, we all need to take precautions to
reduce the possibility of high levels of ozone.
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(A)
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Did You Know...
In Corpus Christi, we drive over 5,000,000 miles EVERY DAY! That's tons of pollution our cars
make every day. If we eliminate just a few trips in our cars, that can make a big difference
in the pollution we make. Consider walking, car-pooling, riding your bike, or taking the bus.
For each car or car trip we take off the road, we save our air from pounds of pollution a day!
http://www.bikeroute.com/EnviroFacts.htm
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