By Ken Selvaggi
WAVE 3 Vice President and General Manager
Good luck breathing – another air quality alert.
That's become a fairly common warning for area residents
this summer.
It's already happened twice this week.
Bad hair days have been replaced with bad air days.
They are days when ozone exceeds the national health
standard.
They are also days when the air quality index doesn't
measure up to the national health standard.
Both metrics have exceeded 20 days this year – with more
than a third of the year left - and both
were 20 or more last year as well.
When nearly a month or maybe more of an entire year children
and the elderly, and those with respiratory problems, are advised to stay
indoors, it doesn't matter how many parks you have and how nice they are – it
may become a deterrent in attracting people to come live here.
Louisville made the top 10 list this year of The American
Lung Association's "Most Polluted Cities."
Certainly, weather plays a big factor, and having the second
hottest month ever for Louisville in July didn't help.
But extreme weather seems to be the new normal now so
finding ways to help the air stay cleaner should move up on the list of
problems to tackle now before we actually do start losing people from the
largest city in the Commonwealth.
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