AIR POLLUTION IN JEFFERSON COUNTY
Goetz H. Kloecker, MD, MBA
Over the last months, James Bruggers of the Courier Journal has written several important articles on Kentucky’ s air pollution.
Kentucky ranked 9th for industrial greenhouse emissions in 2014 and 6th for toxic air emissions nationwide. Over the last decade some of the power plants such as Mill Creek and Cane Run invested billions of dollars in new technology and have since reported improvement, with emissions reduced by more than half. Between 2010 and 2014, the industrial toxic air emissions for all of Kentucky also improved from 60 million pounds down to 40 million pounds.
For overall toxic emissions, in 2013 Jefferson County was among the worst in the nation- only 5 th from the very bottom. In 2014, the nation’ s worst by self-reporting were two plants in Beulah, ND, pumping out 20 million pounds of foul air. Altogether in 2014, of the top 20 highest-emissions plants, eight were in KY and Indiana. But by 2015, Jefferson County had improved to 13 th from the bottom nationally, again based on industry self-reporting. After ongoing enforcement of the Clean Air Act, the toxic air emissions here fell from 7.2 million pounds to 4.7 million pounds in 2015.
An MIT study from 2013 concluded that air pollution contributes to 200,000 deaths a year in this country. Many of Louisville’ s citizens suffer from chronic allergies, asthma and sinus respiratory problems, and accept this as the inevitable fate of living in the steamy, hot, green Ohio Valley. In fact, Louisville is ranked as one of the worst cities in the US for asthma. However, one has to wonder, searching for mountain chains around Louisville, and looking across the Ohio River at the fairly flat state of Indiana- where is the valley part? And how much is the poor air quality due not to geography, but instead to the consequences of modern times?
In 2016, the World Health Organization( WHO) published a global assessment of ambient( outdoor) air pollution. Its database compiles information on PM( particulate matter) 2.5 µ m and PM 10 µ m for 3,000 locations worldwide. Particulate matter is an important part of toxic air emissions, beside noxious gases such as oxides of nitrogen, sulfur and ozone. PM levels of 2.5 µ m were used in the WHO report as an indicator of air pollution risk for cardiovascular disease, emphysema, lung cancer and respiratory disease in children. The WHO report assumed that air pollution was responsible for 3 million deaths in 2012. The report makes clear that the data and
( continued on page 8) MARCH 2017 7