After a very grueling and cold winter, Marylanders are finally seeing the fruits of their patience with temperatures above 60 and our old friend, the sun. However, we’re only a week into May and the warm weather already comes with some bad news--ozone alert days. Over the first five days of May, we saw three code orange alert days warning us that we’re inhaling dangerous amounts of smog while we enjoy the first days of summer weather. Sign up for Sierra Club's text smog alerts
If you’re not familiar with smog, it is a pollutant that forms when pollution from coal plants, tailpipes, and other sources mix together in the hot summer air. According to the American Lung Association (ALA), inhaling smog pollution is like getting a sunburn on your lungs and often results in immediate breathing trouble. Long-term exposure to smog pollution is linked to chronic respiratory diseases like asthma attacks, reproductive and developmental harm, and even premature death. Vulnerable populations like children, the elderly, and people with preexisting medical conditions are especially susceptible to the negative health impacts of smog. This means when the city releases code orange days for smog, it is especially unhealthy for these vulnerable groups to be outside. And the nice weather just started!
Maryland needs to keep those most vulnerable in our communities safe. Our state has certainly made some good progress on reducing smog, but we still have our problems. Marylanders shouldn’t have to face orange air alerts in early May and worry about an asthma attack when they leave their house to enjoy the outdoors.
We still have seven coal plants in Maryland that pump smog-forming pollution into the air, many of which are peaker plants that come online and spew pollution on the hottest days, making things even worse. Meanwhile, neighboring upwind states don’t require all of their plants to run the pollution controls they have installed! That’s a recipe for poor air quality. In fact, pollution from these plants and other sources is so bad that when the ALA recently released their annual State of the Air report it stated that numerous Maryland Counties still received an F rating for ozone pollution. Indeed, 57 percent of Maryland’s population lives in counties that have received an F ozone grade. That’s over half of the state’s population--over half!
It’s clear that we need bold action. We need the EPA to protect us from neighboring states that pollute from poorly controlled smokestacks. And we need Maryland to get serious about a coal-free future. We can’t act too surprised that we struggle with smog when we still host massive coal plants in the state. We need to start planning specifics about what it means for our state to transition away from the decades-old plants that pump out smog-forming pollution, including how we do that in a way that protects our workers and communities.
I don't know about you, but the winter was enough suffering for me. I would like to enjoy my summer sun in peace. It’s time for Maryland to act bold and clean up our air more aggressively so we can enjoy the summer sun the way we were meant to - worry, and pollution, free.
David Smedick
Campaign & Policy Director
Sierra Club Maryland Chapter