Why Houston's air improved faster than LA

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by austingreen, Aug 5, 2013.

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  1. JMD

    JMD 2012 Prius 4 Solar Roof

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    My pleasure no need to read your arm chair nonsense from Appalachia insulting LA.

    2K you should not write smack about Los Angeles and concern yourself with your own back yard, West Virginia among the lowest income in the nation $17,000 annual. Now that is a crying shame


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    #21 JMD, Aug 6, 2013
  2. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    It would take some effort, but the trends in ozone non-attainment days can be plotted through time for Houston LA basin, or any other (of many) areas with data. Start at USEPA, search around to the place where you can design your own spreadsheet data for download.

    A lot of work has gone into making the ozone (and other air chem) data reliable

    It is possible that someone at PC would want to do that...
     
    #22 tochatihu, Aug 6, 2013
  3. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    For LA there is a partial graph available
    Ozone pollution control in L.A. | ground-level ozone
    [​IMG]

    For houston the year of shame was 1999 with 52 days of non-attainment for ozone. LA had 40 days of non-attainment that year, and is in non-attainment for 3 other pollutants. In 2011 with record temperatures, drought, and wild fires (year that should be the worst if all else was equal) Houston was at 29 days. Dallas and Houston are both non-attainment cities. Dallas never made it to number 1, and didn't have as intense clean up, peaking at 32 days in 2011.
     
    #23 austingreen, Aug 7, 2013
  4. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    When I go to Pittsburgh city lately I go thru the Liberty Tunnels. I used to get sick in there when I was a kid with the exhuast fumes from the cars...now the air in the tunnel is just fresh mountain air, smells like (with my nose). Unfort it was loss of steel mills that probably cleaned up Pgh.
     
    #24 wjtracy, Aug 7, 2013
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  5. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Pittsburgh was already much cleaner when I first got there. The smelliest city I remember was gary indiana which we used to drive through as kids. I remember asking my dad how people could live there. He said you get used to it, and if you don't have skills its hard to move and find a job. I assume that is what is happening in the very polluted cities of asia today. You could smell the sulfur quite clearly from the steel mills and coal power plants. I imagine Pittsburgh was worse.
     
    #25 austingreen, Aug 7, 2013
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