“The majority of people living in Dallas, TX, have never breathed legally clean air, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.”
That shocking truth is from Cherelle Blazer, a Dallas resident and environmental scientist. She’s referring to the ground-level ozone
“The majority of people living in Dallas, TX, have never breathed legally clean air, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.”
That shocking truth is from Cherelle Blazer, a Dallas resident and environmental scientist. She’s referring to the ground-level ozone (or smog) levels in Dallas. Ground-level ozone robs hundreds of thousands of Americans with asthma and other respiratory ailments of quality of life. It sends thousands of children to emergency rooms each year and costs us billions in healthcare costs, lost productivity and premature deaths. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently knee-deep in the process of updating our national ozone standards, and thousands of lives hang in the balance.
“We have an epic problem,” says Cherelle of the smog levels in Dallas, which are well above levels considered safe to breathe by the EPA. “There is a reason asthma rates in Dallas average between 18 and 20 percent while the rest of Texas is around 9 percent. Dallas has a true triple threat of pollution—families’ health is threatened by the largest concentration of cement plants to the Southeast, coal plants to the southwest, and shale gas drilling to the west. This has created the conditions for Dallas to have some of the worst air in the country.”