The State of the Air Report, an annual report made by the American Lung Association, revealed that the Lehigh Valley’s air quality has regressed in recent years, in part due to the Canadian wildfire smoke that plagued skies for multiple days in 2023.
The report, announced in late April, found that daily particle pollution in the Lehigh Valley dropped from a C to an F grade. The daily particle pollution ranked the 50th worst in the nation, down from 79th worst in 2024, according to Kevin Stewart, the director of environmental health at the American Lung Association.
Particle pollution, as defined on the American Lung Association’s website, “refers to a mix of tiny solid and liquid particles that are in the air we breathe.”
“There’s something clearly definite as going along differently in this year’s report,” Stewart said. “And the other thing is that it’s very consistent with what we observed in many, many counties and metro areas in what is roughly the northeastern quadrant of the United States.”
The report found that Northampton County saw 3.8 unhealthy air days per year during the analyzed period from 2021-23; each State of the Air Report calculates a three-year average reported by the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA. Unhealthy air days constitute a day when the air quality index surpasses 100, often hazardous levels.
In 2023, the air quality index surpassed 400 in Allentown, where the air quality was ranked the worst in the world on June 7, 2023.
Stewart explained that the data collection from the EPA comes from air quality monitors placed around rural and urban areas in the Lehigh Valley.
“A lot of it is really local,” Stewart said. “What these monitors are intended to do is to give you an idea of what the average worst-case scenario is for large populations, without putting the monitor, as it were, down the smoke sack or up the tailpipe.”
Environmental science professor Kyle Keeler wrote in an email that poor air quality over a long period of time can lead to both acute and long-term health risks. He mentioned an increase in developing respiratory diseases like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes.
“It increases everyone’s risk of certain cancers like lung cancer, or even cancers not immediately related to your respiratory system, like bladder cancer, because of increased pollutants emitted from sources like diesel exhaust,” he wrote.
The Lehigh Valley observed a multi-month drought last October, causing burn bans and crop damage. A 600-acre wildfire at Blue Mountain, located in the northwestern Lehigh Valley, burned during the drought and became the largest in the area in 25 years.
Kate SantaMaria ’27 contributed reporting.
