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Basics
Air Quality Basics
Clean, healthy air is essential to our day-to-day well-being, our long-term health, and the health of our environment. The Clean Air Agency focuses its efforts on reducing air pollutants that pose the greatest health risks to our region – which include heart and lung risks from fine particles, cancer risk from diesel exhaust, and the climate impacts from greenhouse gases.
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Air Pollution & Your Health
Our long-term vision is for healthy air, climate, and environmental justice for the benefit of all people in the Puget Sound region. To achieve this, we target the largest sources of the most harmful pollutants in our region to protect public health.
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Air Monitoring
The Agency monitors and displays air pollution across King, Kitsap, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties.
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Criteria Air Pollutants
Our job is to ensure the people of King, Kitsap, Pierce and Snohomish counties have clean, healthy air to breathe. We do this in part by ensuring our region meets federal air quality standards for six common air pollutants known as "criteria air pollutants." In our region, fine particles contribute the most to our lung and heart risk, with ozone also contributing on the hottest summer days in the Cascade foothills.
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Air Toxics
Air toxics are a group of over 400 pollutants known or suspected to cause a number of health problems, including cancer and birth defects, and damage to lungs and immune and nervous systems. Diesel exhaust is the most important, contributing over 80% of potential cancer risk from air pollution in our region.
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Indoor Air Quality
Air pollution from outside can impact indoor air quality, as well as activities within the building. Because we spend so much of our time indoors, it’s important to be aware of and address indoor air quality.