A recent report from the American Lung Association that gave a failing grade to air quality in Fairfax County and other surrounding areas is drawing fire from a top county environmental official.
The Lung Association last week issued the report, titled “State of the Air: 2007,” which graded ozone levels and “particle pollution,”or the level of soot in the air, for localities around the country. Fairfax County and the District were the only two jurisdictions in the Metro area to receive F’s in both categories.
Kambiz Agazi, Fairfax County’s environmental coordinator, called the report “arbitrary and disingenuous,” arguing that it applied new Environmental Protection Agency air standards to data from years in which those standards hadn’t yet gone into effect. The study accumulated information from 2003 to 2005. The EPA’s new air-particle standards went into effect last October.
“I appreciate the care that the Lung Association has shown, and I agree, in principle, that the region needs to do more,” Agazi said. “Unfortunately, I think the Lung Association likes to play with the numbers and make it look like every local jurisdiction in the region is not doing well.”
Janice Nolen, the Lung Association official who managed the study, acknowledged that it used new standards to assess data from years ago.
“We would disagree that we are applying it retroactively, because what we are doing is reflecting a better understanding of the harm that people’s lung and heart have already been suffering, that what we thought in the past was safe, isn’t,” she said.
The contention comes amid a broad movement by Fairfax County supervisors to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by the county government. Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald Connolly has recently pledged to purchase a larger amount of wind power, implement green building strategies and replace the county’s vehicle fleet with hybrid cars.
