Air Pollution

Baltimore's air is healthier to breathe than it used to be, but the region still has some of the nation's worst smog and soot pollution, according to the American Lung Association. In its annual report on the state of the nation's air, the advocacy group says the greater Baltimore-Washington region had nearly 41 fewer days of high ozone levels during 2010, the most recent year for which verified federal air-quality data are available. But the region still had the 13th most bad smog days out of 277 metropolitan areas across the country.

Charles Campbell's letter ("U.S. must abandon corn-based ethanol," Aug. 29) blames American biofuels for everything from air pollution to malnutrition. But the facts tell a very different story. Far from having no impact on air pollution or actually contributing to it (and Mr. Campbell makes both claims), greenhouse gas emissions from ethanol are "... equivalent to a 48 percent to 59 percent reduction compared to gasoline, a twofold to threefold greater reduction than reported in previous studies," according to a study published by Yale University's Journal of Industrial Ecology.

A friend of mine, who knows more about these things than I do, corrects me when the subject of global warming enters the conversation. The correct term, she reminds me, "is climate change. " The bottom line is scientists who study the weather are pretty much in agreement that the cumulative effect of decades of air pollution will be to change weather patterns over the long haul. They've come up with evidence that it's pretty much started, as several of the hottest years since records started being kept have been in the last 10 years.

Recent events have given reason to hope that a global agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions is achievable. President Barack Obama announced a provisional target based on a bill that passed the House of Representatives in June (the Senate, unable to pass a counterpart, will resume consideration in the spring). The next day, China announced its own target. Some doubt whether President Obama's announcement will carry much weight without legislation from Congress. And China's target disappointed many, as it ties emissions to economic growth; emissions will continue to increase, just not as fast.

WASHINGTON - The chairman of a Senate committee that oversees environmental issues has directed two national organizations that oppose President Bush's major clean-air initiative to turn over their financial and tax records to the Senate. Sen. James M. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, asked for the documents 10 days after a representative of the two groups criticized the Clear Skies proposal before a Senate subcommittee. Inhofe is the leading sponsor of the administration bill, which is deadlocked in his panel.

Maryland is home to the fourth-worst power plant in the nation for nitrogen air pollution, which is washed into the Chesapeake Bay and causes low-oxygen "dead zones" that suffocate marine life, according to a new report. The state is also the site of two of the 20 worst power plants for sulfur dioxide pollution, which causes acid rain and soot, according to the study by a Washington-based nonprofit group called the Environmental Integrity Project. Subsidiaries of the Mirant Co. of Atlanta own all three of the plants: Chalk Point in Prince George's County, which made the nitrogen list; the Morgantown generator in Charles County, 19th on the sulfur pollution list; and the Dickerson plant in Montgomery County, 20th on the list.

A Baltimore chemical company agreed to reduce the amount of toxic sulfuric acid it emits into the air, the state Department of the Environment announced yesterday.SCM chemicals signed a consent order to cut its emissions of the acid -- which can sting the eyes and throat -- by 50 percent by 1992.SCM makes titanium dioxide, a key ingredient in white paint and dyes. In purifying the titanium, the company had been spewing 40 tons of the acid into the air a year from stacks at its Hawkins Point plant in Baltimore, the state said.

Environmental Elements Corp., the Baltimore-based maker of air pollution-control devices, said it has won its second contract as a result of new federal regulations tightening hazardous-emissions standards in the paper industry. The company said it won a $15 million contract from a North American pulp and paper company to do environmental cleanup work at four paper mills in the Southeast. Environment Elements officials didn't identify the client. It is the second contract the company has secured as a result of companies' needing to meet tougher standards for reducing hazardous air pollutant emissions.

A disputed proposal to build a trash-burning power plant in South Baltimore gets another airing Thursday, as the Maryland Public Service Commission weighs whether to give the New York-based developer more time to build the $1 billion facility. Energy Answers Baltimore won commission approval in 2010 for its planned 160-megawatt project at a former FMC chemical plant in Fairfield. But the company could not meet the regulatory panel's deadline to start construction more than six months ago and asked for an extension until next summer.