America's Most Polluted Cities - Forbes

America's Most Polluted Cities - Forbes

While Los Angeles may be synonymous with air pollution to many, the worst levels of year-round particle pollution are in hot, dusty Bakersfield, Calif. (Los Angeles ranks No. 3.) Bakersfield, perhaps best known in recent years for foreclosures, sits in Kern County, where the local economy has long been fueled by oil and natural gas production, agriculture and mining – industries that can produce particle pollution.
But Bakersfield and other Golden State metro areas, including Hanford (No. 2), Visalia (No. 4), and Fresno (No. 5), can also blame their high levels of particle pollution on the terrain. “You have some valleys where the dust and particles collect and the wind can’t blow them away,” notes Janice Nolen, lead author of the ALA’s report and an assistant vice president of national policy and advocacy at the ALA.
Ohio places high on the list as well, with Cincinnati ranking No. 8 followed by six other Buckeye cities. “Ohio has a lot of utilities… these are industrial power plants, many coal-fired,” says Nolen. “Coal-fired power plants have been some of the biggest sources of pollution throughout the Midwest and even in the East.”
As with many of the top-ranked California cities, Phoenix’s climate and geography tends to exacerbate particle pollution. But one of the biggest reasons for the high levels in Phoenix, which ranks seventh, is cattle ranches found south of the city, in Pinal County. “Those cattle ranches are contributing a lot of fine particle pollution to the small communities near them that are part of the Phoenix metro area,” says Nolen. “It’s also being blown into other parts of the city.”