“We have been working hard with our partners to analyze the health and air pollution impacts in the valley.
For the Duwamish Valley community, which has twice the poverty rate of Seattle and is mostly people of color, the top air concern is the tiny particulates known as PM 2.5 (particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns wide).
In the neighborhoods of Georgetown and South Park, it has not decreased,” Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition Executive Director Paulina Lopez said in April 2020. “We still have industry operating. We still have trucks going around the neighborhood.””
Thank you KUOW story for covering our work . Read here
Tackling the pandemic in Seattle’s polluted valley
Below read the analysis we asked our Technical Advisory Troy D. Abel, Ph.D. from Huxley College of the Environment, Western Washington University
This graphic appeared in an article on March 22 in the New York Times reporting that “Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down for Coronavirus.” So, I began to wonder, is Seattle seeing cleaner air everywhere, for everyone?
See Plumer, Brad, and Nadja Popovich. 2020. “Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down for Coronavirus.” The New York Times, March 22, 2020, sec. Climate. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/22/climate/coronavirus-usa-traffic.html.
This graphic displays the 24 average PM 2.5 levels recorded at four Seattle air monitors for April of 2019 and 2020. Unlike the NO2 trends we saw before, South Park and Georgetown particle pollution readings were higher this April compared to last year. Conversely, Downtown and Beacon Hill levels decreased.
A week later, news broke that an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator announced they didn’t expect polluters to meet environmental standards and pollution enforcement was suspended indefinitely. A CBS new reporter concludes that “polluters will be able to avoid penalties for breaking environmental laws if they claim that the violations were in some way related to the pandemic” (Lewis 2020).
I saw another striking headline in the first week of April. A recent national study from Harvard’s School of Public Health estimated if PM2.5 pollution had been lower by just one unit (ug/m3) over the last two decades, then 248 fewer Covid-19 deaths would have occurred in Manhattan (Friedman 2020). A small difference could be a big deal. Then, more worrisome news. EPA’s current leaders also ignored the science and refused to tighten the PM2.5 standard (Eilperin, Grandoni, and Dennis 2020). Decreasing the standard from 12 to nine ug/m3 would drop premature deaths by more than 12,150, or about 27 percent according to a scientific review by EPA staff scientists (EPA 2019).
Friedman, Lisa. 2020. “New Research Links Air Pollution to Higher Coronavirus Death Rates.” The New York Times, April 7, 2020, sec. Climate. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/climate/air-pollution-coronavirus-covid.html.
Lewis, Sophie. 2020. “‘An Open License to Pollute’: Trump Administration Indefinitely Suspends Some Environmental Protection Laws during Coronavirus Pandemic.” March 31, 2020. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-trump-administration-epa-suspends-environmental-protection-laws/.
Eilperin, Juliet, Dino Grandoni, and Brady Dennis. 2020. “Trump Officials Reject Stricter Air Quality Standards, despite Link between Air Pollution, Coronavirus Risks.” Washington Post, April 14, 2020, sec. Health. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/14/epa-pollution-coronavirus/.
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 2019. “Policy Assessment for the Review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter, External Review Draft.” EPA-452/P-19-001. Research Triangle Park, NC: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, Health and Environmental Impacts Division. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-09/documents/draft_policy_assessment_for_pm_naaqs_09-05-2019.pdf.
I kept compiling PM data for Seattle and I’ll wrap up now with this chart. Soot pollution was down in South Park compared to last January but unexpectedly, its higher this April than last.