Q & A: Soot and the Short-Term Standard

In the US, the Clean Air Act empowers the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), which establish health-based standards for some of the most common outdoor air pollutants that are known to be harmful to human health, including soot.

The NAAQS include both:

• Annual standards, which set a health-based limit of pollution exposure in a year. 
• 24-hour standards, which set a health-based limit for pollution exposure within a single day. 

Both the annual and 24-hour standards matter, because both long-term and short-term exposure to soot pollution impact our health.

EPA’s proposed soot standard is a step in the right direction but does not go far enough.  Importantly, EPA did not even propose to change the current 24-hour (daily) standard.

Soot, also known as particle pollution, is not healthy to breathe. Moms Clean Air Force is calling on EPA to set a more health protective standard for soot of 8 micrograms per cubic meter for the annual standard and 25 micrograms per cubic meter for the daily standard. Our families deserve and communities deserve to breathe clean air.

Short-term spikes in pollution can come from things like factory or industrial processes that happen during a short time period and generate significant emissions, or a heavy day of traffic.

Wildfires are another important cause of short-term spikes in particle pollution. As climate change is making wildfires worse, it’s more important than ever to address the sources of air pollution we can control with a strong soot standard.

Both long-term and short-term exposure to soot pollution affects our lungs, hearts, brains, and other body systems; both long-term and short-term exposure can cause premature death, hospitalizations, and emergency room visits for respiratory and cardiovascular illness.

However, short-term exposure can result in acute health impacts during or soon after a day of poor air quality, such as asthma attacks and hospitalization for respiratory and cardiovascular disease. Health impacts from short-term exposure to soot pollution include:

• Premature death: Short-term exposure to particle pollution can be deadly, causing premature death from respiratory and heart disease in the days and weeks following a spike in pollution
• Increased infant mortality
• Increased hospital admissions for heart disease (including heart attacks)
• Increased hospital admissions and emergency department visits from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• Increased asthma severity in children, including increased hospitalization for pediatric asthma
• Emerging research also links short-term soot exposure to mental health impacts

A day’s exposure to a spike in dangerous soot pollution can mean lasting stress and trauma for the families and communities who experience these health impacts.

People of color are disproportionately burdened by unhealthy air. Because of racist practices like redlining, communities of color and low-wealth communities are often forced to live near the sources of pollution that can create short-term spikes in poor air quality, such as industrial facilities or heavily-trafficked roads. This means that they carry an unfair burden of the health impacts from soot pollution:

• In the US, people of color are six times more likely to visit the emergency room for air pollution-triggered childhood asthma than white people.
• Black Americans 65 years and older are more likely to die from exposure to soot, also known as particle pollution, than white Americans over 65. Asian and Hispanic individuals are also at higher risk of death from exposure to particle pollution than white individuals.

EPA’s failure to strengthen the 24-hour standard for soot pollution is a missed opportunity to protect public health and advance environmental justice. For the communities of color who are most impacted by air pollution, EPA’s proposal won’t adequately address disparities in soot-related health impacts.

EPA’s own resource for scientific guidance, an independent advisory body called the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), recommended strengthening the 24-hour standard. EPA’s proposed standards don’t follow CASAC’s advice. The current 24-hour standard hasn’t been updated since 2012, and we know a lot more about how air pollution affects our health now than we did 10 years ago. We need updated standards based on current science.

To the families and communities experiencing health impacts associated with short-term spikes in particle pollution, the importance of strengthening the 24-hour standard is clear. For example, if you are the parent of a child with asthma who has to be rushed to the emergency room on a day when there’s a spike in air pollution, then you know that addressing our short-term exposure to air pollution really matters. As communities of color are disproportionately impacted by poor air quality and more likely to live near pollution sources, strengthening the 24-hour standard is a matter of environmental justice.

We need to be able to trust our air quality standards. Relying on outdated air quality standards has implications for our families and communities. People may be given information that is inaccurate and unsafe. For example, parents and teachers may be told that it’s safe to send children outside to play on playgrounds on days when short-term spikes in soot pollution make the air dangerous for children’s health.

It is becoming increasingly clear that there are serious health impacts from breathing particle pollution even at levels below our current standards. Every day that passes without stronger protections is a missed opportunity to protect our health, advance environmental justice, and reduce other dangerous pollution from these sources. Our communities deserve action now.

You can use your voice to urge EPA to move quickly to finalize the strongest limits on particle pollution as soon as possible. When you sign our petition below, your words will go into a collection of public comments that EPA is required to consider as they issue their final version of the NAAQS soot standard. Tell EPA that our families and communities deserve the strongest possible protections from soot, and that we need both the annual and 24-hour standards strengthened.

Tell EPA: Protect Our Children from Harmful Soot Pollution