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Ozone Action Days Good for Health

© Kenneth Friedman

Do you or does someone you know have asthma? At one time all you had to worry about was pollen and a few other nasty things. Right? Now you have to worry about ozone. Not the kind way up in the atmosphere where it is being destroyed by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other so-called greenhouse gases. That's another tale of woe. No. We're talking here about ground-level ozone. Right where your nose is.

Ground-level ozone is a product of human activity, particularly humans with automobiles. Lots of automobiles. Lots of automobiles in the same place at the same time. Summer time. When it's hot. 90+ degrees hot. Hot with no wind. That's when the sun heats unburned fossil fuel emissions into ozone that hangs around because there is no wind.

If you don't drive a vehicle but you cut your lawn with a gas-powered lawn mower, or you use a gas-powered weed trimmer or other gas-powered hand tool, you're also partly responsible for ozone.

Ozone is so bad around many of the large cities in the United States that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state environmental agencies have rated these cities and surrounding regions as "non-attainment" areas. This means the areas don't meet the ozone standard for healthy air.

One solution to the ozone problem is to cut down on fossil fuel emissions from various kinds of "smoke stacks." This is directed at industries and other activities that produce such emissions. If the "severe-15 non-attainment regions" don't reach attainment by 2005, then the government promises to get nasty. This probably means fines, restrictions on production, and difficulty getting permits to modify and expand operations. "Severe-17 attainment regions" have until 2007 to clean up their acts.

So the non-attainment regions are trying to get industries and other ozone makers to find ways to stop making it. This doesn't happen over night. You can't just go into an industry and say "Hey. Stop burning fossil fuel. Shut down that machine over there and that one over there too!" Industries usually have an awful lot of money tied up in their operations and it isn't easy to (1) get the money to change, (2) quickly come up with designs even if they had the money, (3) implement the changes while still operating the old ozone-producing systems. That's part of the reason there is a long time until the attainment cut-off.

Meanwhile, hack, hack, cough, cough, the air can get pretty dangerous for people with asthma and other health problems affected by air quality. So to try and ease the situation--improve the air--these regions have established "ozone action days." On days when the ozone level gets too high, the regions declare an Ozone Action Day and then industries, businesses and individuals are supposed to cut back on activities that produce ozone. They also are supposed to inform their employees of the ozone action day and to provide them with information on what they can do as individuals to cut back on ozone production. The industries that participate in such programs are called "partners" because they are "partnering" with government to cut down the ozone. Some industries fly little ozone day flags.

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