New "State of the Air" Report Highlights Lingering Pollution Challenges in the Twin Cities

Today, the American Lung Association released its 27th annual “State of the Air” report, which finds that nearly half of the children in the U.S. are breathing unhealthy levels of air pollution, including 723,418 kids in Minnesota. The metro area was named the 39th most polluted in the nation for short-term particle pollution and received an F grade. 

The Lung Association’s “State of the Air” report grades counties’ air quality in terms of unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone air pollution (also known as smog), and year-round and short-term spikes in particle pollution (also known as soot) over a three-year period (2022-2024). The report also ranks counties and metropolitan areas in cleanest and most polluted lists for each pollutant. Both ozone and particle pollution can cause premature death and other serious health effects such as asthma attacks, heart attacks and strokes, preterm births and impaired cognitive functioning later in life. Particle pollution can also cause lung cancer.

Infants, children and teens as a group are more susceptible to the health impacts of air pollution. Their lungs are still developing, they breathe more air for their body size than adults and they are frequently exposed to outdoor air. Air pollution exposure in childhood can cause long-term harm, including reduced lung growth, new asthma cases and increased risk of respiratory diseases.

“Clean air is essential to the health and wellbeing of families across Minnesota. Children deserve to breathe air that won’t make them sick,” said Jon Hunter, senior director of Healthy Air Solutions for the American Lung Association. “Unfortunately, too many people in the Twin Cities metro area are living with unhealthy levels of particle pollution. This air pollution is causing kids to have asthma attacks, contributing to chronic health conditions, and making people who work outdoors sick.” 

Hunter added: “To compound the issue further, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rollbacks of critical healthy air rules are impacting our residents. We urge Minnesota policymakers to take action to improve our air quality and we are calling on everyone to tell EPA that our kids’ health counts.”

Nationally, the report found that 33.5 million children in the U.S., or 46% of people under 18 years old, live in an area that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution. In total, 44% of people of all ages in the U.S. (152 million people in total) live in a county that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution. 32.9 million people live in counties with failing grades for all three measures.

Key Findings for Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI metro area:
Ground-level Ozone Pollution: 
Ozone “smog” affects the largest number of people in the U.S. Smog forms when gases from tailpipes, smokestacks, factories and other pollution sources react with sunlight. It is a powerful respiratory irritant with effects that have been likened to a sunburn of the lungs.  

• The Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI metro area ranked 57th worst in the nation for ozone pollution.
  • The ranking was based on the area’s worst county’s average number of unhealthy days—4.8 days per year, an F grade, in Wright County, Minnesota.
  • This was better than the area's ranking in last year's report of 48th worst, with 5.5 days per year, an F grade.  

Particle Pollution: 
Fine particle pollution can be extremely dangerous and even deadly. These particles come from wildfires, wood-burning stoves, coal-fired power plants, diesel engines and other sources. The report has two grades for particle pollution: one for “short-term” particle pollution, or daily spikes, and one for the annual average “year-round” level that represents the concentration of particles in each location.

• The Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI metro area ranked 39th worst in the nation for short-term particle pollution.
  • The ranking was based on the area’s worst county’s average number of unhealthy days—4.5 days per year, an F grade, in Hennepin County, Minnesota.
  • This was better than the area's ranking in last year's report of 36th worst, with 4.8 days per year, an F grade.  
• For the year-round average level of particle pollution, the metro area’s worst county, Hennepin County, Minnesota, received a passing grade for pollution levels below the federal standard. 
  • The Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI metro area ranked 78th worst in the nation.
  • This was better than the area's ranking in last year's report of 70th worst in the nation. 

Air pollution has been a statewide problem in recent years. In addition to the Twin Cities area, other notable findings in Minnesota include:

• In the Duluth area, Saint Louis County saw its grade improve from an F grade last year to a D grade this year for short-term particle pollution. The region experienced an average of 2.8 days of healthy air between 2022 and 2024. 
• Olmsted County, which includes Rochester, received an F grade for ozone pollution due to an average of 3.3 days of unhealthy air. The county repeated a D grade again this year for short-term particle pollution.
• The Fargo-Moorhead region along the western border of the state also saw an F grade for short-term particle pollution. The Fargo-Moorhead metro region tied with the Twin Cities for the rank of 39th worst in the nation for short-term particle pollution.    

The Lung Association is calling on everyone to urge EPA to value the health of America’s kids. Historically, EPA has played an essential role in protecting people’s health from air pollution. The current EPA has retreated from its public health foundation by rolling back clean air protections. This EPA has also taken the recent step of eliminating health-related information from its economic analyses, meaning that the costs of pollution to kids, families and communities will not be counted as policies are undone. EPA must not devalue kids’ health.

See the full report results and take action at Lung.org/sota.