Checked your AQI forecast for Bryan-College Station lately?
You're likely not alone if the answer was: "Huh?"
But one day soon, the Air Quality Index might not be so meaningless to area residents. Found at www.airnow.gov, the map that color-codes air quality by levels of health concern could be as popular a bookmark on your home page as the weather forecast is for a golfer.
The reasoning was noted in a recently released Texas A&M study that showed the air quality over the Bryan-College Station sometimes fails or barely passes federal ozone standards and only will get worse once proposed new standards are enacted later this year.
Two reasons: Pollution from Houston's petro-chemical rich and traffic-congested city and Mother Nature's wind pattern.
The researcher said there's no reason for panic as the levels do not pose an immediate health risk. Still, he said, residents, especially children and adults with upper respiratory problems, like asthma, need to take precautions in the summertime. Suggestions include not exercising in the late afternoon when the air quality is at its worse and can aggravate such conditions.
"Local residents probably lived through much worse than what's here now," Gunner Schade said, pointing to less than two decades ago when pollution in Houston was at its worse, which meant the local region got hit, too.
Nearly 200 other researchers were collecting data across East Texas over an 18-month period as part of the same project and each noticed a similar pattern, Schade said.
Schade said a detailed analysis of the data found two major conditions.
The first is a predictable explanation of what he calls an urban plume, which is found in large metro areas, like Houston with car emissions and what the petro-chemical industry churns out of its facilities, creating the smog that then blows into the countryside.
"We just happen to be downwind of Houston," he said.
The second reason can be blamed on Mother Nature.
"When air comes out of the north and northeast, ozone is high everywhere, and on southerly wind condition days, there's relatively clean air through East Texas with the air pushing in from the Gulf of Mexico," Schade said, adding that often during the summer months that old air is coming from as far away as Chicago.
"There was a day in August [2006] when the plume out of Houston came straight at us -- like a bullseye. You aim an arrow and usually miss, but this one hit us right in the center," the professor said.
Summer months are the greatest concern because the sunshine cooks up the ozone and adds to whatever already is there.
"Once you produce that, it sticks around for a long time," Schade said, adding that the winter months are less problematic.
A grant is born
John Nielsen-Gammon, an A&M expert on climate change, applied years ago for a grant with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that was slated to be part of a larger study looking at air quality issues in East Texas towns, making it one of the largest inquiries of its kind in the nation.
Once Gunner Schade, a professor of atmospheric sciences and a specialist in air quality, joined the department the grant was transferred to him.
It took two graduate students, and one undergraduate working along with Schade for 10 months to gather all their data and turn it in to the commission in April 2007.
The first thing they did was build tower at Lick Creek Park east of Texas 6 in College Station, put a fence around it, then monitored the air quality results.
The highest ozone readings exceeded 100 parts per billion, while 11 days exceeded 75 parts per billion, which is the limit set in 2008.
The ozone layer is deep in the stratosphere, encircling the Earth, and has large amounts of a special form of oxygen in it. The allowable concentration of ground-level ozone, which is the main ingredient in smog-forming pollution, is 75 parts per billion. Scientists recommended several years ago to bring it down from 80 ppb to a range of 60 to 70 parts, but the government instead lowered it to 75.
New limits under consideration by the Environmental Protection Agency return to what those scientists asked for a few years back -- 60 to 70.
"The EPA is in the process of revising the standard lower, and what that means is the local ozone levels would likely fail the new standards," Schade said. "While it's an honorable notion, it's just not practical unless we change our economy away from fossil fuels. Eventually, that'll happen but not in the next 10 years."
While Houston -- one of hundreds of counties across the country not in compliance with federal air quality standards -- actually has improved in recent decades by cracking down on industry, it's not going to recuperate anytime soon. It remains on the top the list of polluters, along with Los Angeles and New York City.
What to do about it
Dr. David Weldon is an associate professor of internal medicine at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and director of Allergy and Pulmonary Lab Services at the Scott & White College Station Clinic.
He said it's no secret that poor air quality impacts the nose and lungs.
"We have to pay attention to this, especially during exercising in the late afternoon, which athletes often do and kids do by playing outside," Weldon said. "Those with pre-existing lung conditions who participate in those activities may be at risk for being exposed to those concentrations."
He suggested anyone at risk to stay indoors when the air quality is poor. Everyone, he said, should load up on vegetables and fruits while avoiding junk food, because a healthy diet has proven to aid in fighting the impact diminishing air quality has on a person.
College Station City Manager Glenn Brown said that the research finding is worth the city's attention.
"I'm not sure what we can do to immediately address a problem caused by Houston or another metro area, but College Station has been doing things for years to improve air quality."
The city, Brown said, is better because of its actions, including investing in bicycle and pedestrian endeavors, synchronizing signal lights to reduce vehicle emissions, devoting resources to planting trees in urban areas, and partnering with the Texas Transportation Institute to find ways to increase ridership in public transportation.
Schade said that newer studies have found that even healthy adults are affected by ozone levels routinely observed in Brazos County.
"What all of this means is that living far away from Houston does not guarantee good air. Our knowledge of air quality effects has improved and the rules are changing accordingly. What was once acceptable air quality no longer is. And there is really not much we can do about it because we don't make much of our own ozone -- it comes from somewhere else."
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