Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
DENTON COUNTY — If you drive, you are part of the ozone problem.
Traffic contributes to more than 50 percent of air pollutants. Large concrete and power-generating factories account for 10 percent of the ozone problem.
And Denton County is feeling the heat of ground level ozone that is hard to breathe.
“There are a lot of reasons, but mainly because of our location,” said Kenneth Banks, the City of Denton’s division manager for environmental quality. He says even though Denton is smaller than the two major cities in North Texas, Denton has higher ozone levels at times because it is further north in the golden triangle.
“It is a combination of having locally-produced ozone and having quite a bit of ozone migrating up from Dallas and Fort Worth, and even from as far south as Midlothian due to the prevailing wind direction,” Banks said.
The American Lung Association conducted a State of the Air study for 2008 and gave failing grades to several counties: Dallas County received an ‘F.’ Collin County got an ‘F.' Denton County flunked the air quality tests, too.
What is more surprising is that Denton County had 45 "orange" air quality days. That means the level of pollution is unhealthy for sensitive groups, a rate higher than the larger nearby counties.
“Well, that is definitely outside the standard set by the Environmental Protection Agency, so that is a high level of ozone and that is not a level you’d like to see a ground level where people can breathe it in,” Banks said.
Denton officials have launched several initiatives to combat the problem. There is an anti-idling measure in place to prevent unnecessary pollution.
The City of Denton also is going green with its school buses powered by bio-diesel alternative fuel. City officials are replacing older vehicles in the city fleet with newer, environmentally-friendly models.
Dr. Bediola Badie is an allergist in Denton and says he is seeing more patients due to the poor air quality problems.
“It closes the airway to some extent,” Badie said. “People with asthma and emphysema really have to be careful, because it is a fact exposure to high ozone levels cause bronchial spasms and someone with asthma could have an attack.”
Dr. Badie also says children and the elderly are vulnerable to having breathing problems and should try to stay indoors as much as possible on ozone alert days.
Banks says until something happens on the federal level, such as changing vehicle emissions standards, the whole region will face health risks and poor ratings with the EPA.
“It is a regional problem, and everyone is going to have to work on this problem in the region to hope to have a solution,” Banks said.
It is important to note that out of the top 10 cities in the United States most polluted by ozone -- Dallas/Fort Worth came in at number seven.
E-mail ddenmon@wfaa.com
