WASHINGTON — There’s good news about the air people breathe in the D.C. region.
It’s getting cleaner.
In 1998, the D.C. area counted 67 days when air quality was considered unhealthy. This summer was the third in a row without a single “Code Red” day.
This year, there have been just five unhealthy air days, and new draft data show the area now meets federal clean air standards for ground-level ozone.
“This is a big deal,” said Dave Snyder, chairman of the air quality committee for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.
Snyder said years of work on the local, state and federal levels is paying off.
“You’re going to have — and we’re already seeing it — improvements in terms of preventing asthma, bronchitis, heart disease and overall the risk of death from respiratory illness,” he said.
Snyder says the achievement is especially impressive because the D.C. area is growing.
“We really can work together to get at issues so that not only are we reversing trends that might have gotten worse as a result of growth — more cars, more buildings — but we’ve actually dramatically improved our performance from where we were as a much smaller region.”
