by Kevin Zimmermann
SHEBOYGAN, WI (WHBL) – Since 1984, those living in Sheboygan and other lakeshore counties have lived under strict regulations designed to fight air pollution, especially ozone. Hot summer sun acting on pollution – much of it blown up the Lake Michigan shoreline from metro areas to our south – would add ozone warnings and burning eyes to summer days.
Everyone was testing their vehicles emissions every other year before registration could be renewed, and businesses faced stiff obstacles to expansion or startup. But now Sheboygan County has reached a milestone: for three years running, the inland air quality monitor operated by the EPA and the Wisconsin DNR shows that we have attained the standards required by the Clean Air Act of 1990, and yesterday the two agencies announced their proposal to formally redesignate the inland Sheboygan area in Sheboygan County to attainment of the 2008 National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ground-level ozone. That area is all but a 3-mile-wide strip along the shoreline.
All of Sheboygan County was declared non-attainment in 2012 based upon a monitor located on the shoreline but, to account for Lake Michigan’s role, an inland monitor began operating in 2014 and that monitor has proven that air quality there was good.
EPA is proposing to designate the inland Sheboygan area to attainment and, if finalized, local businesses will face fewer air permitting restrictions. A public comment period must be held before final approval, and the announcement contained no mention of possible adjustments to vehicle inspections.
