Four Metro Areas In Maryland Rank Among Smoggiest On East Coast

                        Environment Maryland will be releasing a new report, Danger in the Air: Unhealthy Air Days in 2010 and 2011, showing that the Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Hagerstown and Wilmington-Newark, DE metro areas rank among the smoggiest areas in the country, putting the health of 8 million residents at risk.

Smog is a harmful air pollutant that leads to asthma attacks and exacerbates respiratory illnesses. The report ranks cities in Maryland and across the country for the number of days when the air was unhealthy to breathe last year and this summer. The report also includes new data showing that because of outdated air quality standards, the problem is even worse than the public has been told.

The report comes after President Obama’s controversial announcement this month that he is abandoning efforts to strengthen the current outdated smog standard, as polluters and their allies in Congress push legislation that would make the problem even worse by rolling back existing standards for smog pollution from power plants.