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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Jan. 24, 2000
00-013
Contacts: Larry Altose, public information officer, 425-649-7192
Stu Clark, air quality policy analyst, 360-407-6873
OLYMPIA - Clean air prevents hundreds of premature deaths, avoids thousands of illnesses and saves more than $2 billion in health costs each year because the air is cleaner today than it was in 1990.
The Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) derived the figures from a recent report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), entitled "The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990." The study is the most comprehensive assessment ever conducted of the nation's clean-air laws.
"The figures show that the benefits of clean air outpace the costs to protect air quality by more than three to one," said Mary Burg, who manages Ecology's air-quality program. "It is clear that air-quality programs are a good investment from both a health and an economic perspective."
Burg said the EPA report is especially timely, given that Ecology's air-quality program lost nearly half its funding on Jan. 1, when Initiative 695 took effect. The initiative eliminated a $2-per-year tax on each vehicle that helped pay for the state's air-quality efforts since 1992.
"We're convinced voters did not intend to do away with clean air when they voted to lower vehicle taxes," said Burg. "But unless the legislature restores the funding, one very real outcome of I-695 will be dirtier air for everyone in Washington."
Based on the EPA study, cleaner air each year prevents more than 300 Washington residents from dying prematurely and averts more than 100 cases of chronic asthma and more than 300 chronic bronchitis cases. Nearly 700 hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular illness are avoided, as are 60 emergency room visits for asthma. Nearly 22,000 asthma attacks and 26,000 cases of acute bronchitis and other respiratory symptoms are averted. State residents also avoid more than 61,000 days of lost work and more than 176,000 days of restricted activity due to air-pollution-related illnesses.
Improved air quality also enhances worker productivity and agricultural production, while making scenic attractions visible more days each year, which bolsters Washington's recreation and tourism industries.
The health and economic benefits total more than $2.1 billion dollars per year. By contrast, Ecology calculates the annual cost of achieving and maintaining air quality in Washington at approximately $586 million, based on the EPA study. This includes public as well as private money spent to control air pollution.
Burg noted that, in the early 1990s, Washington state failed to meet federal air-quality standards once every seven days. By comparison, air quality now fails to meet the standards only about six times a year throughout the state.
Despite these improvements, said Burg, Washington meets clean-air standards by only narrow margins, especially in more-populated counties. Several trends could worsen the state's air quality if pollution controls are weakened: the number of all sources of air pollution increases with population growth, especially motor vehicles; sport utility vehicles and light trucks make up an increasing share of the vehicles on the road and they create more pollution; and the miles motor vehicles are driven by tends to increase faster than the population.
"This is a crucial time for air quality," said Burg. "Air pollution still exacts quite a toll in Washington. We're heading in the right direction, but without funding we cannot continue that progress."
Editors, news directors, reporters:
To view the EPA report, EPA's news release and an earlier report on the benefits and costs of clean air programs 1970-1990, please visit http://www.epa.gov/oar/sect812.
Copyright © Washington State Department of Ecology. See http://www.ecy.wa.gov/copyright.html.
