Chron: Yes! Houston #1 again !!!

LA is our b!tch once again! Thank you Houstonians for your hard work. We did it!!

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory/2826187

Houston tops for bad air

Smog season shows more bad days than L.A., hitting '98 levels

By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

Here's the good news: Houston is beating Los Angeles. The bad news is that we're not talking about the Rockets and Lakers.

With just weeks left in this year's smog season, Houston appears set to reclaim the mantle of worst air quality in the nation. Through September, Houston has eight more days of bad smog than Los Angeles and appears unlikely to give up its lead, air-quality experts say.

Thursday put an emphatic stamp on Houston's smog season when 95 percent of the region's air-quality monitors reported unhealthy ozone levels. Bad smog levels haven't been that widespread in the Houston area since at least 1998.

"This year, and this week in particular, shows how far we are from achieving our air-quality goals," said John Wilson, executive director of the environmental group Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention.

Ozone, an odorless, colorless gas, is a primary component of smog. It is closely watched because in high-enough concentrations it is harmful to the lungs. Ozone also is a good indicator that other chemicals, such as hydrocarbons, are present in the atmosphere.

The most common measure of air quality is the number of days a year that ozone levels exceed federal standards at one or more monitoring sites in an area. Levels this year exceeded that standard, 125 parts per billion for at least one hour, on 35 days. Los Angeles has had 27 such days.

By this measure Houston had worse air than Los Angeles in 1999 and 2000, bringing national scrutiny and worrying business leaders trying to attract companies to the area.

Smog season generally ends after October in Los Angeles and after November in Houston.

Yet simply measuring the gross number of days that an area measures at least one air-quality violation is a "poor statistic," said Bryan Lambeth, a senior meteorologist for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality who tracks ground-level ozone.

Lambeth said the health concern is regular exposure to ozone, and it is less critical if one site in southeast Houston measures unhealthy levels one day, and a site in northwest Harris County the next.

"It is also very important to mention that the areawide statistic is heavily influenced by the number of monitors," Lambeth said.

Indeed, although the number of bad smog days has remained relatively constant in Houston for the past four years, the number of air-quality monitors has nearly doubled to 45, he said. Los Angeles has 35 monitors in a four-county area.

Lambeth said a better way to measure air quality is the number of days air quality exceeds federal standards at a particular site.

The worst location in Houston this year is near Tom Bass Park, in south Houston, where there have been eight air-quality violations.

Yet even by using this statistic Houston remains a long way from its goal of meeting federal clean-air standards by 2007, Wilson said. Any monitor in the Houston area can't have more than one violation a year to meet the Clean Air Act requirements, he said.

By most measures, however, Houston isn't having a terribly bad smog season. It now has the same number of days as last year and is below late-1990s levels, when the city averaged more than 40 bad smog days a year.

It is the improvement by Los Angeles that will likely vault Houston back into the position of having the worst smog in the country.

Los Angeles has seen a dramatic fall-off from 2003, when it recorded 68 bad-air days. Air-quality experts don't credit pollution-control measures with that city's success this year.

The city has had cooler temperatures and windier conditions this season, both of which lead to cleaner air. Sunshine helps ozone form, and calm winds allow the chemicals to accumulate over a particular area.

"This has been a very clean year for us," said Joe Cassmassi, a senior meteorologist with California's South Coast Air Quality Management District. "It's been one of those years where the weather conditions have lent themselves to keeping the smog levels down.

"It's just the opposite of last year."