What is in the Air?

Birmingham News environmental reporter Katherine Bouma examined Jefferson County's toxic air pollution issues in last Sunday's Birmingham News (the story was on the front page).

Here is an excerpt from the B'ham News story:

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Engineers at the Health Department would not have discovered the toxic metal at all if they had not decided to go beyond federal requirements and capture the air in industrial areas to identify more than 100 gases, metals and other invisible chemicals.

"It's a soup out there," said Randy Dillard, air monitoring supervisor. "All that stuff is coming from a multitude of various sources, and it's hard to separate it once it gets out in the air."

Arsenic was only one of the heavy metals found at unsafe levels. Cadmium, nickel and manganese also were trapped in the monitors. The Health Department also found 14 gases, including benzene and formaldehyde, at high levels.

Health Department scientists are confident they will be sitting down with industry leaders soon to explain which of their chemicals are harming the public and must be removed from their emissions. If all goes well, the air could be cleaned up within two years.

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The good news - It looks like Jefferson County Health officials are "going beyond federal requirements". In the process of doing so, they found several heavy metals and gases at unsafe or high levels. As a result, they are addressing a potential health problem. That's encouraging.

You can read the rest of the story here and here.