It certainly is no honor that the city of Knoxville is the ninth most air-polluted metropolitan area in the United States. That's the ranking given the city by the American Lung Association in its annual State of the Air report. Nashville at 16th, Memphis at 22nd and Chattanooga at 25th. In the lung association's rankings of counties, based on monitoring data collected from 1997-99, Knox was 15th, with Blount at 13th and Sevier at 12th. The State of the Air report focuses on ozone, the most pervasive and widely monitored form of air pollution.
Ozone is a strong respiratory irritant.
It is formed when sunlight interacts with hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, most of which are produced by coal-burning power plants and automobile emissions. Unfortunately, recognizing the problem does not solve it. To complicate matters further, the solution is not local, but that doesn't mean local officials in Knoxville, Knox County or other municipalities should keep quiet. With the problem widespread across Tennessee, the state should work for a regional or even a national solution. The Tennessee Valley Authority has agreed to clean its ozone-creating plants, but TVA is not the only industry causing the problem.