CLEVELAND, Oho -- The American Lung Association's annual ranking of air quality in American states, cities and counties wasn't kind to Ohio, Cleveland or Cuyahoga County again this year.
But then, the air pollution isn't exactly kind to our lungs -- here or across half the nation -- according to the organization.
Overall, roughly half the people (about 50.3 percent) in the United States live in counties that have unhealthy levels of either ozone or particle pollution. That means nearly 154.5 million Americans live in the 366 counties where they are exposed to dirty air.
Ozone, essentially an airborne soup of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide emissions from automobiles and power plants, is primarily a summertime phenomenon. Cuyahoga County residents can go online for daily forecasts of ozone or to sign up for e-mail alerts.
Particle pollution is the soot or microscopic particulates in the air.
The Cleveland-Akron area was ranked as having the 12th worst air in the country for year-round particle pollution, meaning the accumulated count of particulates in the air over an entire year. The area remains outside the accepted levels set by the EPA, although the totals have dropped in each of the last several years.
Several things about Northeast Ohio's location and occupations combine to make our air among the worst in the nation.They include: heavy industry and steel mills, urban traffic and suburban sprawl and nearby coal-fired power plants. But the region also gets pollution blown in from from power plants elsewhere and occupies the midpoint on a highway system that connects New York City and Chicago, experts say.
Still, the Lung Association's annual report, State of the Air 2011, found that "all metro areas in the list of the 25 cities most polluted by ozone showed improvement over the previous report and 15 of those cities experienced the best year yet."
"State of the Air tells us that the progress the nation has made cleaning up coal-fired power plants, diesel emissions and other pollution sources has drastically cut dangerous pollution from the air we breathe," Charles D. Connor, American Lung Association President and CEO, said in a news release.
"We owe our cleaner air to the Clean Air Act. We have proof that cleaning up pollution results in healthier air to breathe. That's why we cannot stop now. Half of our nation is still breathing dangerously polluted air."
The rankings compare each Ohio county in terms of ozone and particle pollution and also provides the number of at-risk people in each county. Thirty-two Ohio counties -- including Cuyahoga, Lake and Summit -- received failing grades overall.
Three other Northeast Ohio counties -- Geauga, Lorain and Medina -- received "C" grades.