American Lung Association Report: Montana Struggles With Air Quality Following Wildfires and Lands on Most Polluted List

The American Lung Association’s 25th annual “State of the Air” report highlights that despite decades of strong progress in cleaning the air, Montana still face difficult air pollution challenges.

The Lung Association’s 25th annual “State of the Air” report grades exposure to unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone air pollution, annual particle pollution and short-term spikes in particle pollution over a three-year period. This year’s report includes air quality data from 2020-2022 and is updated to reflect the new annual particle pollution standard that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized in February.

“In the 25 years that the American Lung Association has been doing our ‘State of the Air’ report, we have seen incredible improvement in the nation’s air quality. Unfortunately, more than 131 million people still live in places with unhealthy levels of air pollution,” said Carrie Nyssen, Senior Director of Advocacy for the American Lung Association. “Climate change is making air pollution more likely to form and more difficult to clean up. There are actions we can and must take to improve air quality.  The American Lung Association is calling on EPA to set long-overdue stronger national limits on ozone pollution.”

The Billings metro area ranked 36th 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—5.5 days per year. Yellowstone County received  an F grade for this pollutant. There was no data for ozone.

The Missoula metro area ranked among the nation's cleanest cities for ozone pollution, receiving an A grade. The report also tracked short-term spikes in particle pollution, which can be extremely dangerous and even deadly. The Missoula, MT metro area ranked 14th worst in the nation for short-term particle pollution. In addition, Missoula received a failing grade for annual particle pollution levels. This  federal standard  was recently updated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

The “State of the Air” report found that nationally, more than 131 million people live in an area that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution, and 43.9 million people live in areas with failing grades for all three measures. In the three years covered by this report, individuals in the U.S. experienced the highest number of days when particle pollution reached “very unhealthy” and “hazardous” levels in the history of reporting the “State of the Air.” Communities of color are disproportionately exposed to unhealthy air and are also more likely to be living with one or more chronic conditions that make them more vulnerable to air pollution, including asthma, diabetes and heart disease. The report found that a person of color in the U.S. is more than twice as likely as a white individual to live in a community with a failing grade on all three pollution measures.

Both ozone and particle pollution can cause premature death and other serious health effects such as asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, preterm births and impaired cognitive functioning later in life. Particle pollution can also cause lung cancer.

EPA recently finalized new air pollution rules that will help clean up particle pollution and address climate change. Now, the Lung Association is urging EPA to set long overdue stronger national limits on ozone pollution. Stronger limits would help people protect themselves and drive cleanup of polluting sources across the country. See the full report results and sign the petition at Lung.org/SOTA.