The American Lung Association’s State of the Air report gives all Delaware counties passing grades, but some are barely passing.
The 27th annual report finds over 200,000 kids in Delaware are exposed to air pollution that reaches unhealthy levels on multiple days.
Despite that, all three counties in the state earned passing grades .
New Castle County had the worst grades in the state for all three measures of air quality - including a D for high ozone days.
Kevin Stewart is the director of environmental health for the American Lung Association. He says the counties all shared a barely passing grade in another category.
"Every county - all three - got D's for the daily measure of fine particle pollution in this year's report,” said Stewart. “Even though the numbers were a little, at least for New Castle County, were a little bit worse last year, that showed no improvement in the letter."
Kent and New Castle Counties are also part of the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden metro area - which earned straight Fs for ozone smog and fine particle pollution. It ranks 43rd worst in the nation for ozone and 27th worst in daily measure of particles.
In year-round measures of particles, the metro area dropped from 26th to 17th worst in the country.
Exposure can be harmful for at-risk groups including infants, children, teens, the elderly, pregnant women, asthma and bronchitis sufferers, minorities and people in poverty.
"Even one bad air day could be one bad air day too many for someone in that group and can send a child with asthma to the emergency room, cause someone to have angina or a heart attack, even kill them. So we do know that air pollution, even if you're not getting a failing grade from the lung association, there's still plenty of days out there where the air quality is not something that you want to be breathing," said Stewart.
No county in the First State was listed among the cleanest in the country for any measure, but Sussex County did earn Delaware’s best grade with a B for its average for ozone smog.
