This may come as a surprise to some, but to many of us it’s not.
Los Angeles has once again topped the lists as the most polluted city in the nation.
According to LAist, the American Lung Association released the annual “State of the Air” report, which found that Los Angeles gets a whopping “F” grade for having the worst harmful ozone pollution from vehicle tailpipe emissions.
The report, which uses data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the three years leading up to 2014, lumps together Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties as the “Los Angeles metropolitan area” for the purposes of analysis.
Meanwhile our neighbors to the north in Bakersfield won the prize for having the most unhealthy days due to airborne particles produced by highway traffic, farm equipment, diesel trucks and fireplaces.
The study also found that eight out of ten Californians, which amounts to about 32 million people, are living in counties where there are unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution for at least some of the year, the Times points out. Further north, however, Salinas was found to be the only California community to have no days of unhealthy air quality during the period, which the ALA partly attributes to coastal breezes that keep the air moving.
So, with this report. Are you shocked that L.A. has the most pollution?
