Smog alert!

Summer hasn't officially begun yet, but we are already seeing smog levels from coast to coast that are worse than the EPA's new smog standard (75 parts per billion). 

An informal Clean Air Watch survey (this isn't "quality assured" -- jargon which means some state agencies may try to sanitize the results) shows literally hundreds of monitors with readings of unhealthful air quality -- far more than under the "old" standard.

Through the end of May, no fewer than 29 states had recorded "bad-air" days under the new standard, as opposed to only 10 states under the old standard.  a few examples of bad-air days under the new standard that would've been considered "clean" under the old:

April 19 in Bennington, VT (84); April 21 in Mobile, AL (79); and May 24 in Colorado Springs, CO (78).

It will be interesting to continue monitoring the trends.

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