skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Friday, March 29, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Maine’s Air: The Good, The Bad And The Asthma

play audio
Play

Thursday, May 1, 2014   

PORTLAND, Maine – The news for Maine is both good and bad in the latest State of the Air report released by the American Lung Association.

The figures are the most current quality-assured nationwide data on levels of ozone and particle pollution.

Bangor ranked among the four cleanest cities in the nation.

Dr. Marguerite Pennoyer, a board member of the American Lung Association in Maine, says Bangor experienced no unhealthy air days for ozone or particulates during the cycle involved.

"In contrast, Cumberland and York County, our southern parts of the state, had 14 days of unhealthy ozone levels," she relates.

Cumberland got a grade of C, York a D, while Penobscot County received an A.

The report shows the nation's air quality worsened in 2010-2012, but overall is cleaner than a decade ago.

According to the Division of Population Health, Maine has some of the highest rates of asthma in the country.

Approximately 10 percent of Maine adults currently have asthma compared to 7.8 percent nationally. Pennoyer treats many of them.

"Anyone who deals with respiratory disease in Maine can tell you that any time we have poor air quality days the number of calls, the number of emergency department visits increase," she says.

Janice Nolen of the American Lung Association says she's concerned about climate change and how a warmer planet is going to affect air quality.

"If you've got more heat and that's what we're seeing with climate change, you're going to have more ozone, you're going to have the likelihood that you are going to have higher levels than you would otherwise,” she says. “And it's going to make it harder to clean up, and make it more challenging for us to reduce the ozone that we've got."

Pennoyer points out part of the problem for Maine starts to the west and south.

"We are the tail-pipe of New England, and with all these beautiful Down East winds we get everything from the Midwest on over,” she explains. “So we really do see more than our fair share and much of it not produced here."






get more stories like this via email

more stories
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Missouri residents are worried about future access to birth control. The latest survey from The Right Time, an initiative based in Missouri…


Social Issues

play sound

Wisconsin children from low-income families are now on track to get nutritious foods over the summer. Federal officials have approved the Badger …

Social Issues

play sound

Almost 2,900 people are unsheltered on any given night in the Beehive State. Gov. Spencer Cox is celebrating signing nine bills he says are geared …


The U.S. teaching workforce remains primarily white while the percentage of Black teachers has declined. However, the percentage of Asian and Latinx teachers is rising.(WavebreakMediaMicro/Adobestock)

Social Issues

play sound

Education advocates are calling on lawmakers to increase funding for programs to combat the teacher shortage. Around 37% of schools nationwide …

Environment

play sound

New York's Legislature is considering a bill to get clean-energy projects connected to the grid faster. It's called the RAPID Act, for "Renewable …

Social Issues

play sound

Earlier this month, a new Arizona Public Service rate hike went into effect and one senior advocacy group said those on a fixed income may struggle …

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021