The EPA tightened up clean air standards a year ago after new medical research showed fine particles in the air harm people's health more than previously realized. In other words, on days when the air was technically clean by agency rules, it was still dirty enough to send people with lung and heart problems to the hospital.
So the EPA raised the bar. And Missoula fails to clear it on a handful of days, though the EPA doesn't count the days wildfires contribute to the problem.
The EPA must eventually sign off on the proposed boundaries and a fix-it plan, but Health Department officials say they will begin working now to find ways to again clean up the air in the valley. (They'll work with Ravalli County, which also needs to improve its air.)
Missoula has a long history of failing to meet ever more stringent air quality standards - and also of making cutting-edge changes to comply with them.
“For many people in this valley, this is going to feel a little bit like back to the future,” said Ellen Leahy, director of the Missoula City-County Health Department.
Missoula can use a combination of tools to fix the problem: more education for people who use wood stoves, increased public transit, tightened standards for air quality alerts, a land-use plan that focuses on public transportation, a vehicle maintenance inspection program, and likely a host of other ideas from members of the public.
Here's a look at the main polluters and the people they affect, a review of how Missoula met seemingly impossible air quality goals in the past, and a preview of what happens next as the Air Pollution Control Board, Health Department and other local government entities work with citizens to create more breathable air in the Garden City.
Experts call the fine particulate that's too prevalent in Missoula's air PM2.5. It's small - 2.5 micrometers in diameter. It takes 70 such particles to wrap around a single human hair. It's so small it isn't heavy enough to fall out of the sky, like soot. Instead, it floats in the air for a long time and travels, too.
Because it's so tiny, it seeps into people's lungs. Healthy middle-aged folks don't always feel the effects, but small children do. So do some elderly people and people who already have trouble breathing or have weak hearts. When too many of those particles cloud the air, more of those people head to the hospital, according to articles in peer-reviewed medical journals.
“In the ER, we treat lots of people on bad air pollution days,” said Warren Guffin, a doctor who works in the emergency room of St. Patrick Hospital.
In an e-mail, cardiologist Alan Gabster said at usual air pollution levels, PM2.5 is less of a problem than direct and indirect cigarette smoke. But that changes after a while.
“About two days after the levels rise in the ambient air, people start showing up in emergency rooms with vascular events (heart attacks and strokes), as well as the expected respiratory problems in asthma patients even sooner,” Gabster wrote.
And doctors can only do so much to help those patients. Guffin said it's like trying to help someone standing in a field of poison ivy. They can smear on all the anti-itch cream in the world, but what they really need to do is flee that field. Similarly, people with cardiac or respiratory problems can't just take a pill and make it all better when the air is bad. They need clean air.
Before, the EPA allowed a 24-hour average high of 65 micrograms of fine particulate per square meter of air. Missoula met that standard, but now the agency allows just 35 micrograms per square meter.
Most days, Missoula complies - but it's supposed to comply all the time. The Health Department's Jim Carlson said even a handful of bad air days violates public health because the law is supposed to protect everyone - not just strong people who don't feel the difference.
On the worst day of 2006, a monitor counted 43.2 micrograms per square meter of air. In 2005, the worst day had nearly twice as much fine particulate in the air as the EPA allows. Those are the days Guffin sees more people visit the emergency room.
The source of the problem varies because the particulate comes from a few different places, according to a Health Department study. Roughly 25 percent can be attributed to vehicles, gas furnaces and industry. Hog fuel burners at industrial sites make up nearly 12 percent. A boiler at Smurfit-Stone Container Corp.'s Frenchtown pulp mill accounts for 7 percent. And most of it - 55 percent - comes from woodstoves.
“I didn't expect the residential wood combustion would be as big a part of it as it is,” Leahy said.
(A fix isn't as easy as banning all wood burning, though. Leahy said solutions need to be balanced and cannot push too hard in one single direction. Plus, the public needs to help craft the plan to address the problem.)
Second to woodstoves is a combination of polluters - vehicles, industry and gas furnaces. Their emissions form ammonium nitrate, which accounts for 19 percent of Missoula's particulate problem. It isn't clear how much of that comes directly from cars and trucks, but some does. Diesel makes up another 5 percent of the problem.
Transportation contributes to the overall problem, according to Bob Habeck, with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. A high and growing number of vehicles - especially SUVs - add to the pollution.
“It's you and me and our single-occupancy vehicle,” Habeck said.
Missoula Office of Planning and Grants senior transportation planner Mike Kress said new transportation plans must take air quality into account. At the least, they cannot worsen air quality.
Population projections show more and more people coming to the area, and that means more people moving around Missoula. The question, as always, is how will those people get around.
“Are they all going to be in cars?” Kress asked. Or will they walk, bike, ride the bus and use van pools?
While increases in fuel costs hurt drivers' pocketbooks, the higher prices might advance the use of these other travel modes - and thus improve air quality. Kress said he would not advocate for higher prices at the pump, but recognizes that steep costs have an impact on the way people behave.
“I would say that it certainly causes people to think about maybe trying to live closer to where they work so they don't have to drive so much,” he said.
Kress points to Federal Highway Administration data showing average vehicle miles traveled has leveled off nationally since 2005. The flattening of an upward trend coincides with the time the cost of gasoline hit $2 a gallon.
Transportation's contribution to the problem isn't as large as industry's, though over the years, a smaller and smaller portion of air pollutants can be attributed to industry.
Most of the fine particles emitted by industry in the Missoula area come from a boiler at Smurfit-Stone Container, but technical services manager Neal Marxer said Montana holds that boiler to higher standards than would other states.
Over the last 20 years, the company spent $63.4 million to upgrade equipment at its Frenchtown mill to reduce emissions and meet new air quality regulations, he said. On a typical day last week, the boiler sent out less than half of the allowable emissions.
“We want to be good environmental citizens,” Marxer said.
Smurfit-Stone could be a better environmental citizen - 7 percent better - if it slowed production on the worst air days, Marxer said. Better equipment would help, but it costs as much as $15 million and is difficult to justify, given the paper mill already beats expected standards, he said.
On most days, the air in Missoula is much cleaner than the EPA requires. Meeting the new air quality standards for the worst days isn't just about shaving down the spikes, though, Leahy said. It's about planning for growth in the valley.
“We run the risk of getting too close or exceeding the threshold in the face of growth,” she said.
Cleaning the air is a big task, but years ago when Missoula faced similar air quality challenges, it helped create a blueprint for meeting new standards that then seemed insurmountable.
“Missoula County Health Department did innovative - even controversial - stuff to help clean the air, and has been wildly successful,” the DEQ's Habeck said.
He said Missoula was the first to adopt rules governing the operation of woodstoves. Carlson said Missoula advocated for national standards for woodstoves, and they were created and tightened down over time.
Builders can't put fireplaces in new homes in urban Missoula. People can install only pellet stoves. Also, homeowners must remove high-emissions stoves when they sell.
Missoula passed local ordinances to protect good air, too, and the Health Department embarked on an aggressive education campaign. Street sweepers are dispatched on bad-air days to remove road sand, only “clean” sand and de-icing chemicals can be used on slick city streets, and all new parking lots and streets must be paved.
Carlson said Missoula was the first city in the country to have an air pollution alert program, too.
“All of those things together have had a huge impact on air quality,” Carlson said.
Missoula's City-County Health Department houses the most progressive air quality department in the Northwest, Habeck said. Normally the DEQ directly oversees air quality programs, but the Health Department asked early on to be the lead agency for air quality matters in Missoula. The state agreed.
“They're old hands at this, and they have the authority to do it from the state,” Habeck said.
Carlson said clearing the air won't be easy. Back in the 1970s, though, he believed Missoula would not be able to meet air quality standards, it was violating them to such a significant degree.
“It seemed like an impossible task,” Carlson said.
But Missoula succeeded, and with a lot of public education, he said it will again.
“It just takes persistence and good science and good communication,” Carlson said.
It takes time, too. By December 2008 or thereabouts, the EPA is expected to sign off on Missoula's proposed boundaries. By April 2013, the city must submit its plan - created with much public input - for meeting the new standard. By 2015, the air must be clean, unless an extension is requested.
It will be a while before Missoula decides how to address the problem and it's a decision in which many people will have a hand. The City-County Air Pollution Control Board is responsible for proposing the fix.
“There's just nothing simple about it if you want to use a good public process,” Leahy said.
But Missoula has faced tough new clean-air targets before, said Alexandra Scranton of Women's Voices for the Earth. And the air has improved.
Future improvements will address an air quality problem that isn't just about protecting the environment, but about protecting the health of all people.
“That's the crux of the whole thing,” Leahy said.
Reporter Keila Szpaller can be reached at 523-5262 or at Keila.Szpaller@missoulian.com
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