OPIRG: Ohio air dangerous, dirty

Smog made breathing Ohio's air dangerous for children, asthma sufferers and the elderly this past summer.

The Environmental Protection Agency's standard for smog was violated 423 times in 38 days this past summer. Members of Oberlin's Ohio Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) reported last Friday. This was done in conjunction with Smog Threat '98 - the 1998 Summer Ozone Pollution Report released by a coalition of groups and sponsored by United States PIRG and the Clean Air Network.

"It is unacceptable that for residents in Ohio, it was unhealthy to breathe the air on one out of every five days this summer," said college first-year Yuri Futamura.

The report stated that summer months have the greatest ozone concentrations since ozone is formed when pollutants mix with sunlight. It can cause problems for adults with no history of respiratory illnesses and necessitate emergency room visits for children, the elderly and asthma sufferers.

Children are more drastically affected by smog than adults because they breath in more are compared to their body weight. According to Dr. Anthony DiMarco, professor of medicine at case western reserve university, "There are 619,000 people in Ohio who have asthma, including children who are more susceptible to asthma attacks."

The major concern of OPIRG and other members of the coalition is a clause in the Clean Air Act which exempts older power plants from the same standards applied to newer power plants.

According to the report, the loophole "allows older power plants to emit as much as ten times the amount of pollution including nitrogen oxides, emitted by newer power plants." Furthermore, two-thirds of the electric industry's pollution comes from these older power plants.

Urso and Shari Weir of Ohio Citizen Action emphasized the importance of not only passing legislation for stricter standards but also making sure that they are implemented. "Having the standards is not enough. We need to meet the standards by cutting pollution from one of the largest sources: dirty power plants," Weir stated in the report. Urso stressed a focus on Ohio because it is one of the "dirty dozen," being third among the 12 worst-polluting states in the United States.

OPIRG also appealed to District 13 Congressional candidates, including Sherrod Brown and Grace Drake, to take the Clean Air Now pledge, stating that they will vote in support of closing the loophole.

OPIRG's organizer Marnie Urso believed that eliminating the loophole would cause more investment in cleaner power plants and reduce their cost.

"We strongly urge Ms. Drake and Mr. Brown to sign the clean air pledge," she said.