Robert McCartney: This is Think Regionally, monthly podcast about Washington area issues sponsored by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments or COG. One of COG's responsibilities is monitoring our region's air quality on a daily, even hourly basis using 14 monitors placed around the region. COG sends out those color-coded alerts to warn people when the air is unhealthy, and they should take precautions. Here's Jen Desimone, COG's Air Program Chief and also managing director of Clean Air Partners, a public-private partnership that educates the Washington and Baltimore regions about air quality.

Jen Desimone: Air quality can range anywhere from good, which is code green, moderate, code yellow, unhealthy for sensitive groups, which is code orange, unhealthy, which is code red, and then there's also a very unhealthy, code purple. So COG looks at the air quality in particular when it reaches that code orange or higher. And when that happens, we issue health advisories to the public and also to the media to let them know that "Hey, air quality is currently unhealthy, it's time for you to adjust your plans or to take action to protect your health."

Robert McCartney: What should people do when it's a code orange or code red, or God forbid, code purple day?

Jen Desimone: So the biggest thing is when the air quality is unhealthy, is everyone should know if they are sensitive to air quality, how it affects them. So if the air quality is unhealthy and they are particularly affected by air quality, then at that point in time, they may decide, "Okay, let's not go out for a long strenuous run. Let's wait until the air quality improves. Let's kind of hold off on some of those strenuous outdoor activities." So that's what folks can do on a health kind of perspective.

Robert McCartney: But that's not all. When the air reaches the orange level or worse, it's important for all of us to do what we can to avoid adding to pollution.

Jen Desimone: Now, there are really simple tips that anyone can do to help reduce air pollution, and those could be things like taking transit, biking, or walking, so not using their vehicles. That's one thing that can be done. Postpone mowing their lawn until air quality improves. Or even better, if they have electric lawn and garden equipment, use that instead of gas-powered equipment. Also, when you're going outside and you want to grill, you want to grill out dinner for that evening, is you utilize an electric grill or utilize a gas grill instead of a charcoal grill. So those are just a few things that folks can do to help improve the air when it's unhealthy.

Robert McCartney: We'll hear more tips about reducing pollution later in the podcast. Because of the Canadian wildfires, our region last year had twice as many unhealthy air days, code orange or worse, than is typical.

Jen Desimone: What data shows is that on average, the Washington region can see approximately 10 unhealthy air days during the summer, with the worst air quality occurring typically in that May to August timeframe. So last year in 2023, the region had a total of 20 unhealthy air days, and of those 20 days, 17 of them were considered code orange days, which is unhealthy for sensitive groups. Three of those days were considered code red, which is unhealthy. And again, that was the highest summer that we had seen since 2012.

Robert McCartney: Let's get a bit technical now and clarify what exactly is meant by dirty air. COG tracks primarily for two pollutants: ground level ozone and fine particles. Ozone is an unhealthy gas created when car exhaust or other emissions are exposed to heat and sunlight. When breathed, ozone inflames the lungs and causes respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurological damage. The other pollutant, microscopic particulates, come from power plants, vehicle exhaust, wildfires, and other sources. They are so small, a tiny fraction the size of a human hair, that they penetrate deep into the lungs and contribute to numerous respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Our region is currently out of compliance with federal ozone standards, which are based on measurements over a three-year period, but that's only because of the excess levels recorded during those wildfires last year. The region's state governments and the District of Columbia have asked the Environmental Protection Agency to adjust the data by exempting the ozone levels registered during the unusual wildfire event. But we would meet the standard if those days from the wildfires were excluded, which is what you're trying to accomplish.

Jen Desimone: Exactly, exactly. So if EPA approves those days being excluded and being used in our data analysis, then that would mean that we would be meeting the standard.

Robert McCartney: So that's ozone pollution. What about the particulate pollution? What's the standard for that, and are we meeting that standard?

Jen Desimone: Yeah, so the great news is for fine particles, for PM2.5, the region is meeting that standard. EPA just recently announced a lower standard for fine particles, and the good news is again, that the region is currently meeting that standard as well, so that's really great news on our part.

Robert McCartney: The other great news is the significant improvement in air quality achieved over the long term. It's evidence that changes in policy can make a difference in repairing damage to our environment.

Jen Desimone: We can go back to the 1990s and we can see that the data has greatly, greatly improved. We previously... I would say back in the mid-ish to late '90s, we saw upwards of about 80 unhealthy air days and we're now down to an average of 10.

Robert McCartney: How did we accomplish that?

Jen Desimone: For an example, we can tell you that looking at vehicles, the vehicles of today are much more cleaner than the vehicles of 10, 15 plus years ago. So we're seeing fewer emissions for vehicles. They're just much more cleaner today. The same goes with emissions from power plants as well. There's been a lot of work done, in particular, on the federal level and the state level to reduce emissions from power plants.

Robert McCartney: Now let's hear how local governments are pushing forward to deepen our knowledge about air quality and how to improve it even further. The District Department of Energy and the Environment conducted a pilot project last June using state-of-the-art pollution sensors placed in cars. They drove around three communities, Ivy City, Buzzard Point, and Mayfair to measure air quality for two weeks on a street-to-street basis. The results showed how much pollution levels can vary even within short distances. Now, the district is about to roll out a larger version of the project, monitoring nine communities for three months. Joseph Jakuta is branch chief at the DC Department's air quality planning branch.

Joseph Jakuta: I think that being able to see it on the map just really makes it more salient because you kind of know that traffic creates pollution, but when you can see that that line is so much darker than just two blocks away in a neighborhood street, I think it really has an impact on people's ability to visualize the problem. We know through this work that probably the biggest polluter is diesel pollution. Especially in the highways, but we also saw it in neighborhoods as well. And one of the good things about having the study look at multiple pollutants is that you can tease out more easily what the source is.

Robert McCartney: What kind of compliance measures might be then considered, or what kinds of policy changes might then be considered?

Joseph Jakuta: Well, obviously, it's always going to depend on what the problem is. For instance, when we find an area that is an idling hot spot, we send our compliance staff out more often to inspect that area, and often, it is borne fruit. For instance, we recently finished up a compliance effort against greyhound because they were often idling in the same spot near Union Station.

Robert McCartney: The air monitoring project has focused on lower income communities with high populations of racial minorities, which historically have suffered disproportionately from poor air quality.

Joseph Jakuta: Well, there certainly are instances in particular of highways being built through communities of color. Especially during the 1960s, you saw some communities being able to fight back against highways being constructed through their neighborhoods and others were not so successful, and those tended to be the communities that are now considered overburdened by air pollution. There's also an increased number of facilities such as auto body shops, gas stations, stuff like that. They're still in communities that are experiencing higher levels of air pollution that were historically redlined. Then as far as how to solve that, the biggest area is electrification where DOE is funding a project actually in collaboration with COG to clean up some of the switcher trains in the Ivy City right now. We're also helping to fund projects, for instance, to electrify some of the DPW fleet, which is on the southern end of Ivy City. So electrification of these diesel vehicles is going to be crucial because we're still going to need pickup trucks, we're still going to need garbage trucks, we're still going to need street sweepers, but these all, as we move towards electrification, this will reduce the pollution in these neighborhoods in particular.

Robert McCartney: Now, let's talk about some groups of people most at risk from bad air. One is children. Here again is Kristen Willard of the Anti-Allergy Group GAP. She also is a board member of Clean Air Partners.

Kristen Willard: When you're thinking kids, they are still developing. They're still developing their immune systems, they are still growing, so of course they are at a higher risk of having poor outcomes related to poor air quality. We know too, in actuality, they're at closer to the ground, physically closer to the ground where certain pollutants are just more prevalent. And their respiratory rates, when you think about it, are actually higher. So they're simply breathing more than adults do, so when they're breathing more, it's an opportunity for them to breathe in more pollution.

Robert McCartney: Another vulnerable group is at the other end of the age spectrum.

Kristen Willard: We know the elderly are more at risk for poor outcomes. When you think about it, as we age, our bodies just are not as adept as they once were at fighting off pollutants, at fighting off threats as when we were younger.

Robert McCartney: During code orange days, both children and the elderly are advised to reduce strenuous exercise outdoors. On code red days, they should consider moving all activities indoors. The same recommendations apply to pregnant women and individuals with respiratory or cardiovascular ailments. The limitations are stricter, of course, for those rare occasions when the air quality worsens to code purple or the most extreme level code maroon. Whenever the quality drops to orange or below, people are also urged to pitch in to pollute less.

Kristen Willard: We also stress adopting behaviors that are simple to do. Now, behavior change is hard for everybody, but taking simple actions I think really can make a change.

Robert McCartney: What sorts of things can we do? We've already mentioned using public transit or carpooling, and using electric grills and lawn equipment rather than those burning charcoal or gasoline. Willard and others also say we should fill our gasoline tanks not during the day, but after dark, when the release of fumes will cause less damage. We should reduce electric demand by turning off unneeded lights and setting the thermostat on the air conditioning a few degrees higher.

Kristen Willard: If everyone in our community made these small changes, they really, really would add up for us.

Robert McCartney: Now I'll share some of my own thoughts. We've talked a lot here about how to do better at controlling air pollution, but it's important to keep in mind that the long-term trend is one of success. Compared to 20 or 30 years ago, we have made dramatic advances in reducing the number of days each year when it's unhealthy to breathe the air. Most of this progress has been the result of legislative and policy changes at the national state and local levels. It shows that government regulation can work to improve conditions for the public as a whole. This is a lesson that we should apply to the greatest environmental challenge of our time, that of climate change. It's worth noting that the rise in global temperatures risks reversing the success we've had in cleaning up the air. Climate change contributed to those Canadian wildfires last year. Here's Jakuta again from the district government.

Joseph Jakuta: We certainly saw that last summer that climate change was leading to a major particulate matter setback for the entire East Coast, and I can't imagine that that would be the last time. Also, when it comes to ozone pollution, we know that warming temperatures will increase ozone levels. The only question's whether we can reduce the pollution fast enough to offset any increases from the increased temperatures.

Robert McCartney: It's a race against time to slow and ultimately reverse global warming. Let's remember that the stakes include the health of our lungs and heart.

I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. We welcome your feedback, email us at ThinkRegionally, one word, @mwcog.org. This podcast is produced by Lindsey Martin, Amanda Lau, and Steve Kania. I'm your host Robert McCartney, urging everyone as always to think regionally.