HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. — The air in Houston County might not be the safest according to the American Lung Association. Their State of the Air report listed Houston County as one of the worst areas in the state for daily air pollution.
The Chairman of the Houston County Board of Commissioners Dan Perdue says he was surprised.
“My initial reaction is really," Perdue said.
He said the poor grade from the American Lung Association is just one piece to a bigger puzzle.
"That’s one metric of air quality and in several of the other metrics of air quality, our county and our region are doing very well," Perdue said.
The report measured the high amount of particular matter or PM 2.5 in the air. Greg Boike is the project manager for the Clean Air Coalition.
They’ve been working for over 20 years for Central Georgia to have cleaner air. The American Lung Association said too much PM 2.5 in the air can lead to asthma attacks, heart attacks, death, and more.
Boike said there are other risks to not paying attention to PM 2.5.
"We don’t want to end up in nonattainment for that under the EPA standards. Being in nonattainment is not a desirable thing for a community because it makes growth and progress harder to achieve," Boike said.
When a community is labeled as nonattainment, any projects that require federal funding will be delayed because more restrictions are in place due to the National Environmental Policy Act.
Perdue said Houston County is working to stay in attainment because it would hurt one of the community’s biggest contributors.
"A large part of the reason that we're concerned about P.M 2.5," Perdue said. "It affects our air quality attainment and which affects how the Department of Defense looks at Robins Air Force Base and the ability to locate missions there."
Some of the contributors to the spike in particle pollution are controlled burns, high traffic, and paving dirt roads. Perdue said the county is working with their industrial partners too.
"We’re glad that they’re here because they produce jobs and they produce a quality of life here that we’re very proud of. We want to support them and help them reduce what they’re doing," Perdue said.
Boike said when one county shows a high reading, it becomes a regional problem because the air doesn’t know county lines.
"It’s not just going to be Houston County that’s looking at solutions they can take. It’s all of our communities around the area," Boike said.
The Environmental Protection Agency set a new standard for PM 2.5 that will be active in 2032. The new attainment level will be 9.0.
Houston County currently sits at 9.1. The Clean Air Coalition and the county are confident they will reach that new standard in eight years.