JACKSONVILLE, Fla – Air quality in Northeast Florida receives a good grade compared to other parts of the state according to data released by the American Lung Association.
The "State of the Air" 2019 shows that too many people in the United States live where the air is unhealthy for them to breathe.
Recommended Videos
People are breathing easier with low levels of ozone in Duval County which gets a "B" grade. Many of the rural areas with less car and industry pollution scored an "A" including Baker, Columbia and Flagler counties.
Other first coast counties have no monitoring system in place to collect ozone data.
Tampa was the worst Florida offender and the only city with a "D" rating.
South Florida and I-4 corridor counties had average "C" grade for ozone.
More than 43% of the people in the United States live in counties that have unhealthful levels of either ozone or particle pollution, according to the American Lung Association report.
Nearly 141.1 million Americans live in 244 counties where they breathe unhealthful levels of air pollution in the form of either ozone or short-term or year-round levels of particles.
Why? One big reason is climate change. Warmer weather, different rain patterns create continued challenges to long-term progress in reducing harmful air pollution under the Clean Air Act.
Drier air leads to decreased low cloud cover and less rain, which is the primary method aerosols are removed from the atmosphere.