Echo
Wisconsin county overcomes air pollution imports to avoid regulation
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By Julia Cechvala
Great Lakes Echo
For the past six years the Dane County Clean Air Coalition has promoted voluntary efforts to reduce air pollution. In February they paid off when the coalition announced that the county meets the federal standards for fine particle pollution. This means that Dane, along with Brown and Columbia counties, escaped regulations that the Environmental Protection Agency can impose on “non-attainment areas.”
Plenty of air quality challenges have confronted Dane County, including some outside the county’s control. Emissions as far away as Texas or Ohio affect Wisconsin’s air, according to Larry Bruss, head of regional pollution issues for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Industrial farms, factories and power plants emit pollutants that combine to form ground level ozone and fine particle pollution.