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EPA rebuts report, says air quality standards improving

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said yesterday that air quality standards across the country have consistently improved since the introduction of its air pollution fee in 2006.

The EPA made the comments after a report in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) yesterday said that there were serious levels of air pollution in six counties and rising ozone levels nationwide.

The agency said that across its 57 monitoring stations, days marked by heavy pollution have dropped to 2.31 percent during the first nine months of the year. This was an improvement over the 2.9 percent recorded last year, it said.

This was despite the agency’s own report, however, that showed ozone pollution was on the rise.

The US EPA Web site describes ground-level ozone as a gas “created by a chemical reaction between oxides of nitrogen and volatile organic compounds in the presence of sunlight.”

The EPA reported that days marked by dire ozone pollution were 1.7 percent so far this year, up from 1.6 percent last year.

The WHO has previously stated in a report that ozone pollution has harmful effects on the human respiratory system. While the ozone layer filters out potentially dangerous ultraviolet light in the upper atmosphere, it is also present in smaller concentrations near the ground.

The EPA said that the rise in ozone pollution this year could possibly be because of increased temperatures and more sunlight.

Scientists led by Gaston Wu (吳家誠), a chemistry professor at National Taiwan Normal University and an official at the Consumers’ Foundation, advised the public to avoid engaging in outdoor activities in direct sunlight.
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