While it is now part of the calendar—it’s now turning 56—it was a new and special day for the planet. On April 22, 1970, not a day too soon, the first Earth Day was celebrated.
Today, in Colorado, the country and in nearly 200 nations, Earth Day is marked. And accordingly, in each location, something is being done to either fix or bring attention to the man-made problems that chemicals and, of course, the carelessness with which we have used them.
In Colorado, the state and various agencies, including organizations like the Regional Air Quality Council, the Front Range region’s lead air quality planning organization, are waging a long-running battle against air pollution, both the kind you can see and the kind you don’t see but is, perhaps, even more dangerous.
“We work on ground-level ozone,” said RAQC’s Communications and Programs Manager, Kelsey Simpkins. Ozone, an invisible, odorless gas formed when air pollutants combine in summer heat and sunshine, can threaten both life and quality of life especially for those with breathing issues. Prolonged or long-term exposure can compromise lung functions and sometimes lead to premature death.
The battle against these pollutants, despite marked success over the years, continues. But the progress made through education has been very nearly remarkable. Much of the credit is traced to the Clean Air Act, passed and signed into law by President Nixon in 1970. The act sets new regulations, both federal and state, limiting pollution caused by smoke-belching factories as well as others caused by motor—gasoline powered—vehicles.
But there are some other sources often given less attention, said Simpkins, that can make a real difference in reducing summer ground-level ozone pollution. Two examples, she said, are right in front of our eyes and contribute far more than most people imagine.
Gas-powered lawn mowers are one culprit, and leaf blowers, more often thought of as aural irritants, top the list of usual suspects.
“Running gas-powered lawn mowers for one hour,” she said, is equivalent to “driving a car for 350 miles.” It gets worse. In that same hour, said the manager of the RAQC’s Simple Steps. Better Air. education and outreach program, a leaf blower creates the same amount of air pollution as “driving a car over one thousand miles.”
Laws are now in place or are being implemented in a number of states, including Colorado, to ban these two sources of pollution, but the effort may take years.
“We encourage people to electrify lawn equipment for both their own health, and our local environment,” Simpkins said, adding that as incentive, many stores statewide are offering point-of-sale discounts of 30 percent for mowers or blowers and similar electric lawn equipment, through the end of 2026.
She reminds us that many other simple steps can make a timely difference for reducing ozone pollution on our blue-sky summer days—and reduce the impact on your budget. Residents are also encouraged to carpool and combine car trips, take public transportation, or for shorter trips, leave the car at home and walk, bike, or ride a scooter (with a helmet, of course!). The state, she said, is also offering $225 discounts on the purchase of e-bikes this year. Another easy step is to avoid idling your car, when parked in school pick-up lines or parking lots, for example.
RAQC’s Simple Steps. Better Air. program also offers literature and electronic tips to learn more about cutting your own fuel footprint and protecting your health each summer from ground-level ozone—including the option to sign up for free text and email alerts. The website address is SimpleStepsBetterAir.org, available in both English and Spanish.
At Colorado State University, Milena Guajardo performs research on air quality. The California transplant visits with community groups to first gauge how best her work can help. “Do you think you can use this?,” is a basic question she asks of her audience.
Guajardo then tailors what she gathers to them, including providing essential data to the county’s Spanish-speaking residents. “We first present a draft of what they need,” said Guajardo, and “we redesign (information) to meet their needs.” The whole idea, said the CSU researcher, “is to co-design community strategies…leading to behavioral changes.”
While some of the things she has shared may seem obvious, too often they can be ignored. “One of our grants was to build smoke-ready communities,” Guajardo said. With so much of the country dealing with wildfires, Guajardo’s work has helped prepare hundreds to prepare for minimizing smoke from not only local fires but from some smoke that leaks across borders from the massive blazes from other states.
While Guajardo knows her work may only be touching a fragment of those who will most immediately benefit, she knows the information has a chance of reaching and helping others well into the future. “I have to hope that that we are going to live our lives differently,” said Guajardo, herself a new mother. Our hope, she said, is not only for today but for future generations.
Scott Landes is an air quality meteorologist at the Colorado state health department whose job keeps him focused on weather and weather patterns, past, present and future. Messaging ozone spikes is an everyday part of his job.
“People today are more aware of air quality,” he said. But it’s not just man-made pollutants that Landes thinks about as a public health hazard, particularly with a drought that Colorado has experienced not only this year but going back several years.
Blowing dust, not unlike the freak dust storm that caused a massive pile up south of Pueblo and killed five just weeks ago, does more than just reduce visibility, said Landes. The dust can also create air quality problems for local residents. The violent winds that wreaked havoc on the highway near Pueblo with dust are the same phenomena that added fuel to Boulder County’s Marshall Fire in late December 2021. Nearly 1,100 homes were burned down in the blaze. It was the state’s most destructive fire in its history. The smoke from that wildfire also produced air quality concerns.
“We issue lots of different (alerts) to make people aware of air quality issues,” said Landes. The alerts cover issues like blowing dust, wildfire smoke, and ozone pollution. Most of the ozone alerts, he said, occur in the warmer summer months.
Weather patterns, those changing as a result of climate change and the normal seasonal ones, are gaining a greater importance in Colorado and elsewhere, the veteran weather expert says. His agency, the state health department’s Air Pollution Control Division, blogs about them, too. The Colorado Smoke Blog (https://colosmokeoutlook.blogspot.com/) along with information on the state health website (colorado.gov/airquality) will provide all the most current information.
While the global environmental challenges we face may feel overwhelming this Earth Day, “there are still a lot of ways that individuals’ daily actions add up, that can benefit our health, our wallets, and our communities,” said Simpkins.
