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Henrico County is among the 280 or so cleanest counties in the nation (of more than 3,000) in terms of short-term particle pollution, and Virginia is home to four of the 10 overall cleanest places to live in the United States, according to the American Lung Association’s State of the Air 2022 report, which was released Thursday morning.
Air in the Metro Richmond region is among the cleanest anywhere in the nation; the region is among only eight in the nation with populations of 1.3 million or more to make the list of cleanest regions for short-term particle pollution.
Among the top-10 overall cleanest places to live in the U.S., according to the report: Charlottesville, Roanoke, Harrisonburg-Staunton, and Virginia Beach-Norfolk. Four of the other six locations also are on the East Coast; the only exceptions are Honolulu, Hawaii and Lincoln-Beatrice, Nebraska.
The report found that Henrico experienced no high particle pollution days and just one ozone pollution day during the three-year period from 2018 through 2020. By contrast, Los Angeles experienced an average of about 21 days per year of high particle pollution and 114 days per year of dangerous ozone pollution levels during the same period.
Overall, the Metro Richmond region experienced its best-ever air quality for daily measures of ozone smog and fine particle pollution, according to the report.
Seventeen of the most polluted places to live in the nation, according to annual particle pollution counts, are in California, and 15 of the most polluted places according to ozone pollution also are in the state, the report concluded.
(Particle pollution refers to a mixture of tiny bits of solids and liquids in the air that can come from a wide variety of sources, including factories, power plants, and diesel- and gasoline-powered motor vehicles.)
In Virginia, none of the 17 regions with sufficient data to report experienced even one high particle pollution day during the three-year study period. The state experienced just 12 high ozone days during the same period of time, according to the report.
The report’s authors recommended three action items for local governments that they believe will help reduce air pollution and address climate change:
• adoption of a climate action plan to reduce countywide emissions by supporting walking, biking and public transit with zero-emission-vehicle infrastructure;
• purchase of zero-emission fleet vehicles, such as school buses, transit buses and other government vehicles;
• establishment of purchasing goals for renewable, non-combustion electricity.
“The scientific evidence has clearly shown for years that impacts from climate change threaten human health,” the report’s authors wrote. “These health impacts are no longer a concern for the future. They’re happening now What remains to be seen is how much these impacts increase in severity, how much action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is able to mitigate them, and how much communities are able to adapt to the impacts that can’t be avoided.”
The effects of climate change – including an increase in extreme weather events, deterioration of air quality from increased ozone formation and wildfire smoke and expansion of the range of disease-carrying pests – are creating problems for many people and more significant problems for those with greater health risks, according to the report’s authors. That group includes children, senior citizens, residents of low-income communities and some communities of colors, they wrote.
Minorities often are more likely to experience the negative effects of air pollution because over time, “decision-makers have found it easier to place sources of pollution, such as power plants, industrial factories, landfills and highways, in economically disadvantaged communities of colors than in more affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods,” they wrote.
As a result, people of color have higher rates of emergency room visits for asthma and other diseases than their white counterparts. They’re also more likely than white people to be living with one or more chronic conditions that make them more susceptible to the health effects of air pollution, the authors concluded.
