Another Dirty Air Alert For WI Lakefront Counties
As I've been reporting here, the air quality in Milwaukee and other Lakefront counties is again in a hazardous zone - - and your soon-to-be-senior US Senator supported easing electric generating smokestack emission regulations - - but the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources decided in Walker's first few weeks in office to discontinue air quality "watches" until an"advisory" is needed.
The current advisory began at 3:00 PM and was issued at 3:15, according to the DNR. I got my email at 4:00 PM.
By which time, we were already breathing bad air - - but how long had these conditions been building to this point?
Wisconsin Statewide Air Quality Notices
2 comments:
Ozone action days used to be called when the ozone index was between 50 and 100. If I go bicycling in those conditions, I don't feel too well. Over 100 it's considered "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups." I've never been diagnosed as having a respiratory illness. At 3:00 p.m. today I had to go take a rest at work. I feel the effects, then I check the air quality index. I felt the scratchiness at the back of my throat. My point is that there is an objective, measurable reality that affects people's lives in tangible and significant ways. If you ignore that, you don't even have a chance to come up with good policies.
I get a burning sensation under my relatively-old-fashioned contact lenses about an hour before the advisory is issued. I can predict its arrival. Often, I have to take my lenses out and drip in eyewash, but since I do not have eyeglasses to treat the condition for which the lenses are prescribed, a bad air day cam be the end of my working, and
writing, and certainly any driving or outdoors activity.
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