Some Coastal Pollution Migrates From Asia

About 10 percent of West Coast air pollution originates in increasingly industrialized eastern Asia, according to a new study by a University of Washington researcher.

“Our results show that Asian pollution is affecting much of the U.S. West Coast, with Washington and Oregon affected slightly more because of wind patterns,” said researcher Dan Jaffe, an associate professor at the UW’s Bothell campus.

“The coasts of Washington and Oregon are in a straight line from Asia,” said Jaffe, who coordinates the UW’s new science, technology and environmental program for the UW. He presented his findings Wednesday at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Some of the pollution almost certainly makes its way inland, to Tacoma, Seattle and other Northwest cities, he added.

But the lion’s share of Northwest pollution is homegrown.

“I don’t want to give people in our cities - Tacoma, Seattle, Portland - the idea that they can point the finger at somebody else for their pollution problems,” he said.

“When I flew out of Sea-Tac (Tuesday), there was a lot of crud trapped down in the Kent Valley that had nothing to do with air pollution from Asia.”

As U.S. air-quality standards are tightened, pollution from across the Pacific could become more significant. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is writing new rules for ozone pollution, which will significantly lower acceptable pollution levels in American cities.

In some cases, Jaffe said, pollution from Asia might be enough to push a city’s air quality above those levels.

Asian cities are among the most polluted in the world due to coal-burning power plants and millions of vehicles.

Most experts expect the problems to get worse.

Local air quality regulators say they’re not surprised by Jaffe’s findings.

“It makes perfect sense, because some of these compounds are not removed very easily from the atmosphere,” said Jim Nolan of the Puget Sound Air Pollution Control Agency. But he does not believe Asian pollution has much impact.

“If it was true that … 10 percent of the smog was coming from out of the region, that would be huge. But we proceed from the idea that virtually all of the air pollution in our region is generated in Washington or lower British Columbia.”