How Clean Is Our Air in Jacksonville Fla?

While heredity, lifestyle and personal habits determine alot about a person’s health, more and more research reveals that human health is also determined by one’s surrounding environment.

Consider the following facts about air pollution in Jacksonville Florida:

The Port of Jacksonville  is the largest unregulated source of air pollution in the state.

According to the Clean Air Task Force, as of 1999,

Jacksonville ranked among the worst 10% of U.S. cities for diesel soot pollution.

In 2007, Duval County received an “F” from the American Lung Association for the amount of hazardous particle pollution in its air.

For every $1 spent on cleaning up port pollution, we save $30 in health care costs.

What do these statistics have in common? Diesel exhaust

– whether emanating from traffic congestion on our roads,

or from the vehicles, trucks, ships and equipment associated

with our ports. Compounds in diesel emissions have been

linked in thousands of medical studies to cancer, heart

disease, asthma, and other respiratory diseases.

Among the toxic compounds found in diesel exhaust

is particulate matter, which is found in emissions from

coal fired power plants. According to the American

Lung Association, these tiny particles are harmful to the

maintenance of lung health. Less than 2.5 microns in

diameter, the particles are so small (a human hair is about 70

microns in diameter) that they are inhaled deeply into the

lungs where they are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream,

as easily as oxygen molecules, and carried to the vital organs.

The health risk from diesel exposure is greatest for

children and the elderly; for people who have respiratory

problems or who smoke; for people who regularly strenuously

exercise in diesel-polluted areas, and for people who work

or live near diesel exhaust sources. Studies have also shown

that the closer a child lives to major roads, the higher the

rate of hospital admissions for asthma and the higher the

rate of occurrence for leukemia and cancer. In fact, there is

a positive relationship between school proximity to highways

and asthma rates.

For every $1 spent on cleaning up port pollution,

we save $30 in health care costs.