(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s air is getting better, and the state remains the federal measures for air pollution.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources released its latest air quality trends report.
It shows that since 2004, air quality in Wisconsin has steadily gotten better.
“The report shows that over the last 20 years, statewide ozone concentrations have decreased by 15%,” the DNR wrote in the report. “For decades, ozone concentrations have been dropping across the state. However, that trend has slowed. Last year’s wildfire smoke contained ozone-forming pollutants, which, combined with recent warmer-than-usual summers, contributed to increased ozone concentrations.”
That wildfire smoke came almost exclusively from Canada.
The DNR report tracked just how harmful Canada’s wildfires in the summer of 2023 were in the state.
“Five percent of the entire Canadian forest burned last year,” DNR Air Management program director Gail Good said in a statement. “During the multi-day air quality advisory in late June of last year, the air monitoring network measured some of the highest PM2.5 concentrations ever recorded in the state.”
“Wildfire smoke events in 2023 resulted in the DNR issuing 15 PM2.5 air quality advisories – almost five times higher than the average over the previous 12 years,” the report added. “PM2.5 advisories are issued when air quality has reached or is expected to reach the orange ‘unhealthy for sensitive groups’ level on the Air Quality Index (AQI).”
There are some other concerns besides Canadian wildfires. The DNR report noted that communities along southeast Wisconsin’s lake shoreline continue to struggle with ozone issues, primarily due to people and power plants.
“The Milwaukee area, and parts of Sheboygan and Kenosha counties, continues to fall short of meeting the 2015 ozone standard,” the report’s authors wrote. “Wisconsin has implemented many programs that have reduced emissions of ozone-causing pollutants from power plants, industry and transportation in the state. However, these emission reductions have not resulted in the attainment of the 2015 ozone standard because most ozone-causing emissions are transported across state boundaries and are outside Wisconsin’s control.”
The DNR report, however, does not say where those out-of-state ozone-causing emissions are coming from.
