PARKERSBURG – The American Lung Association released its 27th annual “State of the Air” report, showing mixed results for the local area.

The Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna, WV-OH metro area was ranked the 125th worst for high ozone days out of 226 metropolitan areas; ranked 173th worst for 24-hour particle pollution out of 224 metropolitan areas; and ranked 126th worst for annual particle pollution out of 211 metropolitan areas.

Nationally, the report finds that 33.5 million children in the U.S., or 46% of people under 18 years old, live in an area that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution. In total, 44% of people of all ages in the U.S. (152 million total) live in a county that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution. There were 32.9 million people living in counties with failing grades for all three measures.

The American Lung Association’s data shows a slight increase in daily particle pollution in the Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna metro area over the past four years while the annual amount has remained consistent. Wood County had a grade of C for ozone pollution, a B for 24-hour particle pollution and a “pass” grade for annual particle pollution. Washington County had a grade of A for ozone pollution and no data measured for 24-hour particle pollution or an annual grade.

The report stated annual PM2.5 concentrations by county for the period 2022-2024 were retrieved from EPA’s website. The Lung Association did not conduct further analysis on these data, beyond using them to assign a “passing” or “failing” grade, the report stated.

Ozone and particle pollution are widespread and can impact anyone’s health, but infants, children and teens are more susceptible to health impacts, according to a press release from the American Lung Association.

Their lungs are still developing, they breathe more air for their body size than adults and they are frequently exposed to outdoor air, the release said. Air pollution exposure in childhood can cause long-term harm, including reduced lung growth, new asthma cases, increased risk of respiratory diseases and impaired cognitive functioning later in life.

More broadly, both pollutants can cause premature death and other serious health effects such as asthma attacks, heart attacks and strokes, and preterm births, the release said adding particle pollution can also cause lung cancer.

“Some of the numbers there were devastating to see,” said Eric Engle, a member of the Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action group. “The nature of it and the effects, especially on children and developing bodies.”

Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action is involved with a grant funded air quality monitors that are part of the Purple Air Network, a community-driven, global system of low-cost, laser sensors that provide real-time air quality monitoring, focusing on particulate matter for citizen air monitoring.

They are working to gain more monitors and get them to interested people. Right now, they are limited to operating in West Virginia as their grants don’t allow for the monitors to be deployed to Ohio, Engle said.

“We have helped a lot of interested folks get them,” he said.

People can go to map.purpleair.com to see what local air quality monitoring shows. Engle said there are people buying monitors in places like Doddridge and Ritchie counties which are starting to show data.

“You are starting to see more of them pop up across the area that isn’t necessarily directly tied into what we are doing, but are still tied into the monitoring network,” he said. “At the very least, people can look at these numbers and see the prevalence of particulate matter 2.5 which is 2.5 microns across or smaller, which are particles that can get very deep in the lungs and affect the pulmonary and cardiovascular systems, especially for people with pulmonary and cardiovascular disease or other heart-related conditions.

“The numbers associated with that indicate the seriousness of the threat and almost any presence of that is not a good thing. It indicates if dangerous levels are really present in the area or not.”

Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action is working at getting more monitors deployed across Wood and surrounding counties.

“We can use this data to analyze trends over time with air pollution and try to determine the source when there are spikes in air pollution,” Engle said, adding a number of monitors are concentrated in the city limits of Parkersburg.

People tracking the monitors have to be aware of someone who might be burning wood or having a barbecue that can account for isolated spikes. However, concentrated readings can also indicate something else of concern.

“We are trying to get as many of these out there as we can and arm folks with knowledge,” Engle said.

As part of a statewide effort, they want to analyze the data and determine long-term trends and sources of pollution to see if they can eventually impact statewide regulations for air quality. However, there have been efforts in the state legislature to prevent citizen air monitoring data from being used in determining air quality regulations which their group opposes, Engle said.

The monitors they use are of the same quality of the ones used by regulatory agencies, like the EPA.

In this area, they are looking at monitoring industrial sites around the area and along the Ohio, Little Kanawha Rivers.

“We want to let the public know when some dangerous conditions might arise or when things really aren’t that dangerous or as bad as other data they are seeing,” Engle said.

Based on 2024 U.S. Census data, the Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna metro area has a total population of 146,013 with 29,203 children under 18; 33,450 adults 65 and over; 2,544 with pediatric asthma; 15,379 with adult asthma; 13,177 with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); 102 with lung cancer; 15,825 with cardiovascular disease; 1,362 pregnancies; and 19,416 estimated to be in poverty, the report says.

“Clean air is essential to the health and well-being of families across West Virginia. Children deserve to breathe air that won’t make them sick,” said Elizabeth Hensil, director of advocacy for the American Lung Association in their release. “To compound the issue further, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rollbacks of critical healthy air rules are impacting our residents.

“We urge West Virginia policymakers to take action to improve our air quality, and we are calling on everyone to tell EPA that our kids’ health counts.”

The full report can be viewed online at lung.org/sota.

Brett Dunlap can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com.