Ozone also can damage plants and reduce crop yields. The Air Awareness Program helps curb smog levels through pollution forecasts, media alerts and notifications to participating businesses. Participants voluntarily agree to help reduce emissions of smog-forming pollutants on high ozone days. For instance, businesses encourage or offer incentives to their employees to car-pool, ride buses to work, eat lunch at their offices, or take other actions that reduce driving. Air Awareness organizers will distribute free water bottles, brochures and coloring books about air pollution to people who attend the opening of the Triangle program at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
Fans also can see special exhibits relating to air quality on the stadium's second floor concourse.
Light Co. State air quality officials believe the Air Awareness Program could have been a factor in limiting smog levels in the Charlotte and Winston-Salem metropolitan areas last summer. Neither city had ozone levels that topped the federal standard in 1997, despite exceedances at several monitoring stations in the state. No areas in North Carolina currently violate federal clean air standards, but that will change under a new ozone standard that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopted last summer. The new ozone standard is much more restrictive, and state air quality officials estimate that more than half of the state's residents live in counties that exceed the standard. Air quality officials hope the Air Awareness Program will help the state comply with the new ozone standard and protect public health and environment.