Breathe Easy: 5 Things About Air Quality

The scorching temperatures for St. Peters have eased up this week a bit. Temperatures are no longer touching triple digits.. With this break from the heat, St. Peters Patch brings you this breath of fresh air: the Air Quality Index (AQI), from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

1. What is the AQI? The AIRNow website states the index "tells you how clean or polluted your outdoor air is, and what associated health effects might be a concern for you." The EPA looks at five pollutants regulated by the Clean Air Act:

• ground-level ozone (smog)
• particle pollution (also known as particulate matter)
• carbon monoxide
• sulfur dioxide
• nitrogen dioxide

2. How do I know when to be concerned about the AQI? You can check on the AQI for the St. Louis metro area using the AIRNow website. It shows a map of Missouri and provides a key to explain each AQI level.

• Good
• Moderate
• Unsafe for Sensitive Groups (USG)
• Unhealthy
• Very unhealthy
• Hazardous
• Action day

You can sign up for EnviroFlash notifications to got AQI alerts and other information via email or on your mobile phone.

3. How does heat affect the AQI? High temperatures go hand in hand with unsafe air quality. "Ground-level ozone (or 'smog') is formed when hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide pollution from vehicles, power plants and other combustion combines in sunlight and heat," explains a blogger from Ecocentric.com quoted by TIME.com. "So, if there's more sunlight and heat, there will be more ozone in the air." 

4. What's so bad about ground-level ozone? Better known as smog, the EPA explains this pollutant can:

• cause breathing problems
• reduce lung function
• aggravate asthma
• inflame and damage the lining of the lungs

5. How is the air quality in metro St. Louis and the state of Missouri? In May, Clean Air St. Louis reported on the latest data  from the American Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report. The news was not good. The report ranked metro St. Louis "34th in the nation for high ozone days and 17th in the country for year-round particle pollution."

In July, KMOX reported that Missouri made the Natural Resources Defense Council's "Toxic Twenty,"  a list of 20 states with the most air pollution released from electric power plants.