SACRAMENTO – Sacramento, and much of California, received unfavorable marks in this year’s State of the Air report from the American Lung Association (ALA).
The organization released its 25th annual report on Wednesday, which assesses how often certain areas have unhealthy ozone pollution (smog) days, unhealthy particulate pollution (soot) days and/or unhealthy annual particle pollution levels. The report covers the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, from 2020-2022.
It found that 9 out of 10 Californians live in an area that received a failing grade in at least one of these categories. Even more troubling, more than eight in 10 Californians live in an area that does not meet all three categories.
When looking at the nation’s most polluted metropolitan areas, the Sacramento-Roseville area ranks 7th in high ozone days, 7th in year-round particle pollution, and 9th in short-term particle pollution. Sacramento County did not crack the top 25 for high ozone days, but ranked 18th for short-term particle pollution and 24th for year-round particle pollution among U.S. counties. Placer County, where Roseville is located, ranks 9th in ozone, tied for 18th with Sacramento for the short term, and has not been in the top 25 all year.
California dominated the top 10 for each list, with the Los Angeles region ranking first for ozone for the 24th time since the report began in 2000, and Bakersfield topping each of the other two lists. Los Angeles and Bakersfield were in the same positions in the 2023 report.
The ALA says that despite decades of progress in creating cleaner air across the country, four in ten people, or 39% of Americans, live in places with unhealthy air quality. The report also found that more than half of the country’s people of color live in a place that does not meet any of the categories, and that people of color are 2.3 times as likely to live in a U.S. county that does not meets all three categories.
The metropolitan areas considered the cleanest to live in were Bangor, Maine; Johnson City-Kingsport-Bristol, Tennessee-Virginia; Lincoln Beatrice, Nebraska; Urban Honolulu, Hawaii; and Wilmington, North Carolina. Each of these areas in this year’s report had zero days of high ozone and particle pollution and were among the 26 cities with the lowest particle levels year-round.
The full State of the Air report can be found on the American Lung Association website.
