Cleveland seeks to improve air quality at a critical time
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Cleveland ranks as the ninth-worst metro area for year-round particle air pollution in the American Lung Association's 2025 State of the Air report.
Why it matters: The report arrives as the city seeks to raise its air quality standards for the first time in nearly 50 years.
How it works: The Lung Association's report includes data from 2021-23, "the most recent three years of quality-assured nationwide air pollution data publicly available."
- Locations were ranked based on ozone, a gas that — at ground level — is a harmful irritant, and particle pollution, which involves tiny airborne particles from wildfires, fossil fuel burning and more.
The big picture: Just over 156 million Americans — 46% of the population — are living in areas with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution.
- That's almost 25 million more compared to last year's report, and the highest number in the past decade of the report's history.
Zoom in: Cleveland went from the 54th worst city for particle pollution on last year's report to ninth this year, the most dramatic shift between reports for any U.S. metro area.
This past January, Mayor Justin Bibb announced proposed changes to the city's air pollution code, which hasn't been significantly updated since 1977.
- The changes would include establishing Emission Control Action Plans for air quality emergencies, as well as regular health impact assessments for at-risk neighborhoods.
- There would also be grants for businesses to upgrade equipment to reduce emissions, a citywide indoor air quality program and stricter enforcement of the anti-idling policy for city vehicles.
Threat level: A significant percentage of the Cleveland metro area's roughly 3.7 million residents are at high risk when it comes to air pollution, according to the Lung Association.
- That includes nearly 770,000 people ages 65 and over, as well as more than 52,000 children and more than 326,000 adults with asthma.
What they're saying: "What we've found is the air quality in Cleveland has improved over time, but we still have a disproportionate amount of air pollution in certain neighborhoods," Christina Yoka, Cleveland's chief of air pollution outreach, tells Axios.
- "We've been doing our research and held community meetings working on solutions to these problems that are appropriate using today's technology."
What's next: Cleveland's revised air pollution code was introduced at city council in March and will go in front of the Department of Health and Human Services next month.