Here's How Dirty Your MD County's Air Really Is: 2023 Report

MARYLAND — Two fewer Maryland counties earned F grades for air quality in the 2023 “State of the Air” report, released Wednesday by the American Lung Association.

Nationally, nearly 120 million people, or more than one in three, in the U.S. live in counties that had unhealthy levels for some of the most harmful and widespread types of air pollution: ozone or particle pollution. Locally, air quality showed mixed results.

The new report gave D or F grades to nine of Maryland's 24 counties, while another nine counties had no grade because they don't have monitoring equipment. Only one county – Garrett – received an A grade (see list below).

In Maryland, although counties more often had fewer days with unhealthy levels of ozone pollution, two metro areas — the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC region and the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden combined statistical areas, covering 15 of Maryland’s 23 counties — ranked 26th worst and 28th worst, respectively, out of 227 metro areas across the country.

For both regions that showing is worse than in last year’s report.

Four Maryland counties, two fewer than in last year’s report, earned F grades, all in the Washington metro area: Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Harford, and Prince George’s.

“As we can see from this year’s report data, there is much work to be done in the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington metro area to improve our air quality,” said Aleks Casper, advocacy director, for the Lung Association, in a news release. “Even one poor air quality day is one too many for our residents at highest risk, such as children, older adults, individuals who are pregnant and those living with chronic disease. That’s why we are calling on lawmakers at the local, state and federal levels to take action to ensure that everyone has clean air to breathe.”

Only four Maryland counties — Baltimore, Carroll, Frederick, and Montgomery — posted worse grades for ozone while seven counties improved, and three remained the same.

Garrett County, the only county in the state with an A grade for its zero days high in ozone smog, was for the sixth consecutive year among the nation’s cleanest counties.

Baltimore County displaced Harford County as the county in the metro area with the worst performance for ozone in this year’s report, earning an F grade for unhealthy levels of ozone.

“Maryland has an opportunity to make a significant commitment to the health and wellbeing of all Marylanders by moving forward with a suite of policies that would accelerate the transition to zero emission vehicles of all sizes. We urge Maryland to move quickly with the adoption and implementation policies to cut harmful pollution from cars, trucks and buses,” said Casper.

In contrast, although half of Maryland’s counties graded for the year-round measure of fine particles — Baltimore, Cecil, Dorchester, Harford and Prince George’s — had worse long-term averages in this year’s report, the ranking for the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington metro area still improved slightly, from 75th worst to 79th worst in the nation.

Four Maryland counties improved for this measure and one remained the same, while the remaining 13 counties did not collect data. And although no county in Maryland improved for the short-term measure of fine particles, performance there was typically good, with seven counties continuing to earn A grades, posting zero days with unhealthy levels of fine particle pollution, the other three graded jurisdictions earning B’s: Baltimore City remained the same, and only two (Baltimore and Cecil Counties) posted worse weighted averages.

Nationally, the report found that ozone pollution has generally improved across the nation, thanks in large part to the Clean Air Act.

Out of the nearly 120 million people who live in areas with unhealthy air quality, a disproportionate number, more than 64 million (54 percent), are people of color. Of that group, 64 percent are more likely than white people to live in a county with a failing grade for at least one measure, and 3.7 times as likely to live in a county with a failing grade for all three measures.