SHEBOYGAN, Wis.—Sheboygan County officials hope to boost the county’s air quality ratings by taking measurements farther from the shores of Lake Michigan.
The county has regularly had the worst air in the state, but officials maintain that’s because pollution floats north along Lake Michigan from Chicago and other urban areas to the south. Sheboygan County, which is north of Milwaukee, gets hit worse than other areas because it extends farther out into the lake.
The county has been monitoring air quality at Kohler Andrae State Park, which sits on the lakeshore, according to Sheboygan Press Media ( http://shebpr.es/HdrRav). But it will soon begin testing air inland at a station located off state Highway 42 in the Town of Mosel.
Improving the county’s air quality rating is important because failure to meet federal ozone standards has resulted in local manufacturers facing stricter and more costly regulations for pollution they didn’t create, officials said.
“It’s not truly measuring what’s in our neighborhoods, and what’s in the rest of our county,” Sheboygan Mayor Mike Vandersteen said. “Unfortunately, this is one thing that may deter someone from operating a business here.”
Plymouth Foam, with about 120 workers, has invested $150,000 in pollution control equipment and spends another $250,000 per year to reduce emissions—costs it wouldn’t incur if it moved to another county.
“It costs our small businesses a lot of money in a year, and that makes us less competitive than other businesses in our state,” said Steve Steinpreis, director of technical services at the company.
Sheboygan County just exceeds the Environmental Protection Agency’s eight-hour ozone standard of 75 parts per billion. Of six failing classifications, it’s in the lowest category with the fewest regulatory requirements.
Gail Good, air monitoring section chief for the state Department of Natural Resources, said the county would need three years of data to have its federal ozone rating revised.
The only other community in Wisconsin that doesn’t meet federal ozone standards is a portion of Kenosha County, which sits on Lake Michigan just north of the Wisconsin-Illinois line.
Information from: Sheboygan Press Media, http://www.sheboygan-press.com