Hold Your Breath! New Report Gives Bleak View of South Jersey’s Air Quality

The results from a new report on South Jersey's air quality show the area had 266 days of unhealthy ozone or smog levels in 2013.

Southern New Jersey's levels of ozone are the worst in the state and the 16th most polluted in the U.S.A.

And we're not alone.

The American Lung Association’s annual “State of the Air” report finds half of Americans still live in counties where ozone or particle pollutions levels make the air unhealthy to breathe.

The 15th annual national report card shows that while the nation overall continued to reduce particle pollution, a pollutant recently found to cause lung cancer, poor air quality remains a significant public health concern and a changing climate threatens to make it harder to protect human health.

Especially alarming is that levels of ozone (smog), a powerful respiratory irritant and the most widespread air pollutant, were much worse than in the previous year’s report.

Here is the "State of the Air" report in detail from the American Lung Association