Virginia’s air quality has been a topic of debate in recent years, as environmentalists have clashed with business interests. Meanwhile, the quality of Virginia’s air has suffered according to a new report.
Virginia’s air quality isn’t good. In fact, it’s below the national average. That’s according to a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction breakdown from the County Health Rankings, a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin.
They show that Virginia has more fine particulate matter in the air than the rest of the country. “Break down the data and think about what’s going on seasonally perhaps daily just to see what’s going on and think about what are the drivers affecting your community,” suggests Aliana Havrilla, an action learning coach with the collaboration.
The numbers show that some areas have air quality that’s way below the national average. Places like Scott County, Pittsylvania and Danville have the worst air quality.
Kate Addleson at the Sierra Club of Virginia says these places are probably suffering from a combination of factors. “It very well may be there is a combination of road traffic as well as coal mining related practices as well as stationary sources like power plants.”
Click here to review the data from County Health Rankings
She says the best things Virginia can do to clean up the air is limit sources of emissions from power plants and reduce the number of automobiles on the roads.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
