Man by Steve Cutts
Man by Steve Cutts
Sadly, there aren’t too many cities in America that are ranked well for low levels of particle pollution and ozone depletion.
For example, only five cities in the U.S. had reasonable levels of ozone and year-round particle pollution:
- Bismarck, North Dakota;
- Rapid City, South Dakota;
- Duluth, Minnesota-Wisconsin;
- Port Saint Lucie-Sebastian-Vero Beach, Florida;
- Honolulu, Hawaii.
According to the American Lung Association, only seven cities were ranked well for both ozone and short-term particle pollution.
While all of these cities are in the country’s mainland, four were found in the same state:
- Springfield,
- Champaign-Urbana,
- Decatur and
- Peoria-Canton of Illinois.
The other three cities were Brownsville-Harlingen-Raymondville (Texas), Florence-Muscle Shoals (Alabama) and Monroe-Bastrop (Louisiana).
There were 15 cities free of harsh levels of both short-term and year-round particle pollution:
- Albuquerque, NM;
- Claremont-Lebanon, NH-VT;
- Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL;
- Bangor, ME;
- Colorado Springs, CO;
- Prescott, AZ;
- Burlington, VT;
- Flagstaff, AZ;
- Salinas, CA;
- Cape Coral-Fort Myters, FL;
- Sarasota, FL;
- Fort Collins-Loveland, CO;
- Cheyenne, WY;
- Gainesville, FL; and finally
- Tucson, AZ.
There was only one city in the United States that was ranked number one for the least amount of ozone depletion, the least amount of short-term particle pollution and the least amount of such pollution year-round. That city is the Southwest’s Santa Fe, New Mexico.