Clean Air for the Upstate Area: An Action Agenda
Upstate must develop plans to combat smog and soot to avoid federal sanctions
Unhealthy air quality puts the Upstate at risk of costly federal sanctions, such as the loss of federal highway funds, if state and local leaders fail to develop transportation and land-use plans that protect air quality. Clean Air for the Upstate: An Action Agenda warns that even if the region, which recently suffered the nation's greatest increase in number of days with unhealthy air, does meet the 2007 deadline for cleaning its air, it will be challenged to maintain healthy air in the coming decades, as the law requires.
©City of Greenville
In recent years, the Upstate has suffered the greatest increase nationwide in days with unhealthy levels of smog.
In April 2004, Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson counties were designated as "nonattainment" for failing to meet new federal health standards for smog. The three counties, joined by adjacent Cherokee, Oconee and Pickens counties, entered EPA's Early Action Compact program which suspended the nonattainment designation in exchange for the region agreeing to meet an earlier clean-up deadline of 2007. However, if the Upstate fails to meet this deadline or other required milestones, the nonattainment designation will be activated.
While preliminary state modeling suggests that the Upstate may be on track to barely meet the 2007 deadline, even a slight deviation in the model, such as hotter weather or fewer clean cars on the road than expected, could cause the region to miss the deadline. In addition, the standards are expected to become more stringent in coming years, prompting the need for proactive pollution control measures to be taken now.
Much of the Upstate's pollution problem can be attributed to an increase in population and development pattern which continue to promote dependence on cars for transportation. The increase in driving as a result of sprawling development is slowing progress in cleaning the region's air. At the same time, power plant and other industrial pollution are responsible for about one-third of the region's ozone pollution and for the vast majority of particle pollution.
Although the Upstate has taken many positive steps toward curbing these health threats and meeting federal clean-up deadlines, much more needs to be done to improve the region's air quality. To clean up the area's air further, local officials should coordinate transportation and land-use planning on a regional level to better address the impacts of major developments, make alternatives to single-occupant vehicles a priority in the region's transportation funding, and push for aggressive implementation of federal and state programs to reduce power plant pollution.
