Boyd County’s removal from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s non-attainment list for 24-hour fine particulate matter standards does not mean that the quality of this community’s air has improved to the point that it no longer discourages economic development, but it certainly is a step in the right direction. More importantly, it is a clear indication that the quality of our air is improving, and that’s good news for the health of all of us who have to breathe that air.
The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet announced Friday that Boyd and eight other Kentucky counties will be removed from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s non-attainment list for 24-hour fine particulate matter standards. However, the county remains a non-attainment area for annual fine particulate matter standards.
All 120 Kentucky counties now meet the EPA’s 24-hour fine particulate matter standard, the EEC said. The EPA’s decisions to remove the non-attainment designation from those areas is based on the inclusion of 2008 data in a three-year average of particulate matter measurements. Previous designations were based on a three-year average taken from air monitoring data collected between 2005 and 2007.
Kentucky environmental officials touted the news as “continuing proof that Kentucky’s air quality is improving even in the face of ever lowering standards,” said John Lyons, director of the EEC’s Division of Air Quality. “This trend is tremendous news for the thousands of Kentuckians who suffer from cardio and pulmonary diseases.”
While we tend to blame industries for much of this community’s poor air quality, one of biggest sources of local air pollution comes from trucks and automobiles. In fact, Lyons cites raising miles per gallon standards for vehicle engines, along with the production of cleaner burning fuels, as holding the greatest potential for further improving Boyd County’s air quality. Trains and barges also help foul our air and making them more fuel efficient will further improve our air quality.
“We’ve wrung most of what we can get out of the steel mills and the power plants,” Lyons said.
However, Lyons added there are some upcoming additional industrial upgrades — most notably the addition of scrubbers to be in place at Kentucky Power’s Big Sandy Plant near Louisa by 2014 — that will also improve local air quality.
Our air may never be pure and pristine like in some areas, but those of us who have lived here many years can attest to the fact that our air quality is a lot better than it used to be — and it’s getting better all the time.
Editorials
Off one list — 010/13/09
Quality of Boyd County’s air continues steady improvement
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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