Anthony Symkowick

Anela Visesio
Exploration of Poorest Air Quality in the U.S.
Introduction:
Global Report on Air Quality and the Human Impact (NASA)
http://bit.ly/nasa-air-quality
Questions:
Which regions in California are safest for people with asthma?
Do coastal regions have higher quality air than inland regions due
to sea breeze helping dispersal of airborne pollutants?
Hypotheses:
In places with high urban activity, we should see an decrease in
air quality due to factory and automobile pollution and a resulting increase in
cases of asthma compared to counties with lower carbon footprints.
Air near the coast should generally be of higher quality than that of
the middle of the country.
Materials:

Laptop computer
Air Quality Monitor Site
AQI Calculator

Methods:
1. Since ozone is a significant trigger of asthma, we will look at ozone levels in Kern
County, Los Angeles County, Monterey County, and Marin County.
2. The first two counties will represent urban areas with higher rates of pollution,
while the last two will represent areas cleaned by coastal air and with low pollution rates.
3. After receiving data we will gather the information and compare each county.

Results:

In LA County, we see a high of 22 days with

unhealthy air for all people - especially for
In Kern County, CA, we see that during the
those with impeded lung performance. This
hottest months of the year, the average
is equivalent to 70% of the month being
number of days during which air quality was
inhospitable. The overall rate is 32% of the
particularly heavy in ozone particulates is 21.
year spent in unsafe conditions, a slightly
In other words, 67% of the month of July and
better result than Kern County, which initially
70% of June are deemed unhealthy for
came as a shock given the high levels of
people with asthma and other lung diseases.
automobile pollution in Los Angeles. We
Overall, this is almost 38% of the year during
decided to research the two counties to try to
which these people can expect serious
understand why this discrepancy was found.
adverse health conditions just by breathing the
It turns out that in addition to Los Angeles
air outside.
improved air conditions due to anti-pollution
campaigns, a large part of Kern County is
geographically susceptible to pollution. The
San Jaoquin Valley, surrounded on all sides
by mountains, is essentially a bowl that traps
contaminates in the air with little ability for
dispersal.

Marin County had zero days of unhealthy air

for the average person, with just 1.5 days that
would be considered harmful to people with
asthma or other lung disease.

Similarly, Monterey County had 1.7 days of

either unhealthy or very unhealthy air, which
could be due to minimal industrial activity or a
handful of large fires in the area this year. In
both of these coastal counties, it is painfully
obvious to see that not all Americans have
access to the same quality of life, even with a
basic human need like air.

Conclusion:
While we were right about coastal weather patterns helping to reduce pollution and
create cleaner air, the industrial sources of pollution turned out to not always be the sole culprit
of poor air conditions. We should have extrapolated from our initial hypothesis that if coastal
geography could positively impact air quality, an inland bowl could certainly impact the quality of
air in a negative way - so much so that it outranks a highly urbanized area like Los Angeles.
While we only looked at two distinct regions of California, we now understand the subtleties of
environmental factors that can drastically affect the health of people all across the globe. We
were also shocked that Kern County was deemed unhealthy for people with asthma and
believe that no county should have such poor air quality as it is unhealthy for everyone. After
looking at this data and reading about campaigns to fight pollution, we wonder if the country and
the wider world will begin to see an increased number of lawsuits by the public against industrial
polluters and local governments who allow the deterioration of air quality either by malevolence
or negligence.
References:
https://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.main
http://www.aafa.org/page/air-pollution-smog-asthma.aspx
https://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.calculator
https://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?
action=airnow.local_state&stateid=5&mapcenter=1&tabs=1
http://time.com/3399134/air-pollution-climate-change-bakersfield-caifornia/
http://www.ccme.ca/en/resources/air/pm_ozone.html