LACKAWANNA COUNTY, Pa. — The American Lung Association recently released its annual State of the Air report, and northeastern Pennsylvania did pretty well.
Now, a researcher is revealing why he thinks the region did well and what still needs to improve.
“For the second year ever, it has the best ever results for all three air pollutant measures we use in the report," said Kevin Stewart of the American Lung Association's Environmental Health.
Lackawanna County, for example, got an A grade as one of the cleanest counties in the nation, and Luzerne County got a B, which is its best grade ever.
All this is based on three years worth of air quality data, tracking pollutants like smog and soot in the air.
“The top pollutant in the air in the region is ozone, that’s something we continue to have a problem Luzerne County got a B grade which means there was some air pollution, even though we have some progress in the Wyoming Valley, that’s not guaranteed. That’s something you have to work on every year," said Stewart.
Researchers said northeastern Pennsylvania is doing well because of environmental laws and protections and people keeping their cars tuned, conserve electricity, and avoiding open burning as much, but they say more needs to be done everywhere, like continuing to push for environmental protections, cutting back on certain pollutants and more.
“We know that still, about 40 percent of the population in the united states live in areas with poor air quality, and that’s far too many," added Stewart.