Where is smog worst in Atlanta? Often, the suburbs

Posted 9:28AM on Monday 22nd July 2002 ( 22 years ago )

CONYERS, Ga. - Moving dozens of miles away from Atlanta doesn't mean the smog-choked air gets any clearer - in fact, it's often worse. The South's largest city also features some of its foulest air, ranked sixth-worst in the nation by the American Lung Association. And because of geography and wind patterns, smog is often thicker in the city's suburbs than it is downtown, where three of the state's major freeways converge and thousands of commuters idle for hours each morning and afternoon. So far this summer, metro Atlanta has recorded five unhealthy smog days - and on each of those days, the worst air quality was found in towns at least 20 miles from Atlanta: Kennesaw, Douglasville, McDonough and Conyers. Smog was so bad in Conyers one day last month that the Environmental Protection Division classified it a "code purple," or very unhealthy. "I moved out here because it was the country," said Jean Dodd, who moved to Conyers from Chicago 25 years ago. Now Dodd thinks the air is so bad she sometimes cuts short her exercise walks. "I've noticed some days that it's real hazy, and you put that with humidity, it's real hard to walk," Dodd said. Smog is caused by ground-level ozone, which forms when sunlight combines with low winds and moderate humidity to react with pollutants emitted by power plants and idling vehicles. High levels of ozone can make breathing difficult, especially for children and the elderly. Scientists estimate that much of Atlanta's smog comes from cars, but the haze extends far beyond the city's traffic-choked highways. High smog levels have been recorded as far away as Fort Mountain, near the Tennessee border. "There is that perception that air is worse in the center area than it is on the fringes of metro Atlanta, which is not true. Smog travels," said Mary McGovern, executive director of the Clean Air Campaign, an Atlanta nonprofit that encourages carpooling. The worst air in metro Atlanta, home to 4 million people, depends on which way the wind is blowing. The southeastern suburbs take the brunt of the smog plume because winds often come from the northwest - but weather patterns travel in other directions, too, blanketing small towns in every direction depending on the day, said Susan Zimmer-Dauphinee, who runs an air monitoring program for the state Department of Natural Resources. The DNR has 15 monitoring stations set up across the metro area, from Waleska in Cherokee County south to McDonough and Newnan. "A lot of people in the suburbs don't realize their air is just as bad as downtown," Zimmer-Dauphinee said. "That's where the cars are, that's where the wind is blowing, so it's a concern all over." Another surprise is that trees sometimes make the problem worse, not better. A higher concentration of vegetation can encourage chemical reactions in the air that lead to ground-level ozone, said William Mullis, who specializes in vehicle emissions for the DNR. That means the countryside of Coweta County can have as much ground-level ozone as the city streets 30 miles away in Fulton County. "That makes the Southeast very different from Los Angeles or Dallas. The vegetative cover can exacerbate the problem at different times. It helps in many ways, but it can hurt, too," Mullis said. Conyers resident Clarence Williams doesn't need a scientific explanation to tell him the air is bad 25 miles from downtown Atlanta. "If you really stop and look out here, you can tell we have a problem. Five years ago you could be out where it was flat and look and see downtown. Now you try to do that, you're lucky to see just a bit of the skyline," Williams said. There are signs more people in the outer suburbs recognize the problem. McGovern, of the Clean Air Campaign, said that about half of the companies seeking advice on setting up carpools or teleworking are from outside Atlanta, a drastic change in recent years. "I would say there's no real distinction anymore in the level of interest in the city and the outlying areas," she said. "It's a regional problem and we're all contributors. ... It's not something we can avoid thinking about anymore."

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/7/192193