Date: 17-Dec-12
Author: Timothy Gardner, Reuters
The Obama administration on Friday tightened limits on harmful soot pollution from sources including power plants, diesel engines and burning wood.
The new standards, which the Environmental Protection Agency was under court order to finalize, limit annual average soot emissions by the end of decade to about 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air from the standard of 15 micrograms set in 1997.
Individual states will be responsible for deciding how to cut emissions of the fine particulates, which can lodge deep in the lungs and threaten the elderly, people with heart disease and children. Health problems associated with the pollution include premature death, acute bronchitis, and asthma.
“More mothers like me will be able to rest a little easier knowing that our children and our children’s children will have healthier air to breathe for decades to come,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who has two sons with asthma, told reporters in a conference call about the rules….
The EPA, however, estimated that by 2030 the soot rules would prevent up to 40,000 premature deaths and that health care bills would be cut by $4 billion to $9 billion annually. Costs on industry to implement the rules would range from $53 million to $350 million, it said.
The agency said only seven counties, all of them in central or southern California, are projected to fail to meet the standard by 2020. The rest of the counties can rely on air quality standards that have already been finalized to meet the limits, it said…
Environmentalists and health groups applauded the soot rules, which federal clean air laws require to be reviewed every five years…
“We don’t have to choose between a healthy economy and healthy air and lungs,” she said. “We can have both.”
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Bob Burgdorfer)
The EPA has given the State Departments of Health responsibility for protecting citizens from smoke pollution. Here are some EPA references:
- Particulate Matter
- States Required to Create Ag Burning Standards
- Information on Particulate Matter
- Particulate Matter – National Ambient Air Quality Standards
- PM10 Implementation
- PM2.5 Implementation
- The Particle Pollution Report: Current Understanding of Air Quality and Emissions through 2003
- Fine Particle (PM2.5) Designations
- November 13, 2009 Federal Register Notice: Initial Air Quality Designations for the 2006 24-Hour Fine Particle (PM2.5) National Ambient Air Quality Standards
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