Detroit has worst soot pollution in Midwest, American Lung Association report finds
Detroit also received failing grades for its number of unhealthy days per year of ground-level ozone, or smog, in the Lung Association study, which looked at air quality monitoring data collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other state, local and tribal groups.
Both ozone and particle pollution can cause premature death and other serious health effects such as asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, preterm babies, impaired cognitive function later in life, and lung cancer, said Kezia Ofosu Atta, advocacy director for the Lung Association of Michigan.
"Unfortunately, too many people in Detroit are living with unhealthy levels of ozone and particle pollution," she said. "This air pollution is causing kids to have asthma attacks, making people who work outdoors sick and unable to work, and leading to low birth weight in babies. We urge Michigan policymakers to take action to improve our air."
More: Trump budget document points to ending federal role in Great Lakes science by next year
More: 'We were not prepared': Canada fought nightmarish wildfires as smoke became US problem
The 2025 "State of the Air" report reviewed quality-assured data from between 2021-2023. Many areas of the eastern United States saw a rise in particle pollution issues with Canada's record-shattering wildfire season in 2023, the smoke hanging over Michigan, New York and other states for days and weeks at a time.
By the Lung Association's analysis of EPA and other air quality data, Detroit experienced 6.2 days per year of unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone pollution, or smog. That's up from 5.7 days per year in the 2024 report.
The number of unhealthy days per year for particle pollution in the Detroit metro area was 8.5 days, soaring above the 4.8 days in the 2024 report, with Canadian wildfires smoke a major contributor.
Nationwide, the report found that 156 million people in the United States, some 46%, live in an area that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution. Some 42.5 million people, including metro Detroiters, live in areas with failing grades for all three of the study's measures.
The report also found that a person of color in the United States is more than twice as likely as a white individual to live in a community with a failing grade on all three pollution measures. Hispanic individuals are nearly three times as likely than white individuals to live in a community with three failing grades.
The top five metro areas for year-round particulate pollution, in order, are Bakersfield, Visalia and Fresno, California; Eugene, Oregon; and Los Angeles-Long Beach.
The report notes that dramatic improvements to air quality occurred after the enactment of the federal Clean Air Act in 1970, even as the U.S. economy grew.
"Over the last decade, however, the findings of the report have added to the extensive evidence that a changing climate is making it harder to protect this hard-fought progress on air quality and human health," the report states. "Increases in high ozone days and spikes in particle pollution related to extreme heat, drought and wildfires are putting millions of people at risk and adding challenges to the work that states and cities are doing across the nation to clean up air pollution."
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in March announced plans for "the biggest deregulation in U.S. history," scaling back or eliminating numerous air pollution standards for oil and gas development and industry.
"Under the Clean Air Act, the U .S . Environmental Protection Agency has driven decades of progress in cleaning up the transportation, electricity, buildings and industrial sectors," the Lung Association's report states.
"At the same time, EPA has tracked, analyzed and expanded the nation's understanding of air pollution at the community level. Now, however, all of that progress is at risk. Sweeping staff cuts and reduction of federal funding are stymieing the agency's ability to ensure that people have clean air to breathe. This year's 'State of the Air' focuses onan overarching clarion call to people nationwide: support and defend EPA."
The "Fight for Air Climb" in Detroit, a fundraiser for the Lung Association and its mission, is scheduled for May 4. Participants will scale the stairs at Comerica Park. Learn more at ClimbDetroit.org.
Contact Keith Matheny: kmatheny@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: American Lung Association report gives failing grades to Detroit's air
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