Smoke from Canadian fires affecting air quality in Ohio

SANDUSKY — The Canadian wildfires that have been wrecking air quality in much of the northern U.S. have made the air bad in much of northern Ohio, too. The Ohio EPA notes that people worried about air quality where they live can track air quality at AirNow, www.airnow.gov, by simply entering their ZIP codes. On Thursday, the Sandusky ZIP code, 44870, was listed on AirNow as having moderate particle pollution. Particle pollution can harm the heart and lungs. In Cleveland, which tends to have worse air pollution than Sandusky, the air pollution level was listed as unhealthy for sensitive groups. The Ohio EPA says that when air quality is bad, people who are considered to be a member of sensitive groups should limit prolonged or strenuous outdoor activity. Children, the elderly, people with COPD and people with asthma are all considered to be sensitive to air pollution. Particulate levels were expected to remain bad in Ohio at least through Friday, the Ohio EPA said. A map at the AirNow website Thursday showed that while air quality is being affected in Ohio by the Canadian wildfires, the problem was worse in New York City and other cities near the East Coast. CNN reported Thursday that more than 75 million people in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S. were under air quality alerts and that it might take several days for the air pollution to clear up. Many schools in New York, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., have canceled classes or at least limited outdoor activities, CNN reported. Smoke from wildfires in Quebec, Canada, appeared to be lessening Thursday and air quality in Canadian cities is improving, CNN reported. While air pollution in northern Ohio tends to get less attention than Lake Erie's problems, it is a big health problem both in Ohio and in much of the world. According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, air pollution is blamed for more than 6.5 million deaths each year around the world. The institute says that air pollution can be a factor in cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, diabetes mellitus, obesity, and reproductive, neurological and immune system disorders. U.S. economist Alex Tabarrok, writing for the popular Marginal Revolution blog, has been attempting to point out for years that air pollution is a major problem in the U.S. that doesn't get enough attention. On Thursday, Tabarrok noted that New York City currently has the worst air pollution in the world. "Essentially, everything we have learned in the last couple of decades points to the conclusion that air pollution is worse than we thought. Air pollution increases cancer and heart disease and those are just the more obvious effects. We also now know that it reduces IQ and impedes physical and cognitive performance on a wide variety of tasks," wrote Tabarrok, in a blog post linking to a variety of articles and studies. "Air pollution is especially bad for infants, who may have life-long impacts as well as the young and the elderly. I'm not especially worried about the wildfires but the orange skies ought to make the costs of pollution more salient," he wrote. There are numerous studies that show the effects of air pollution. The National Institute of Environmental Health Science, for example, cites a study that showed that women living near major highways may have an increased risk of breast cancer.