Despite controls by the EPA that can put a clamp on industry and force owners to test their vehicle emissions every other year, much of Sheboygan County remains out-of-compliance with national standards for ground-level ozone. That’s according to the 2024 Air Quality Trends Report released on Tuesday by the Wisconsin DNR. That report, which includes 2023’s wildfire-smoke-dominated summer, covers 20 years of state air monitoring data for air pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act, including ground-level ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, particle pollution and lead.
Last year’s Canadian wildfires consumed five percent of the entire Canadian forest, and created some of the highest particulate readings ever recorded in Wisconsin. Despite being factored into the overall data, Wisconsin still saw the so-called PM2.5 concentration decrease 25% in the last 20 years, and all years fell within federal standards.
What did not change were ozone concentrations along the lakeshore. Despite many programs that achieved statewide reductions of 15% over the past 20 years, the Lake Michigan shoreline area which includes the Milwaukee area and parts of Sheboygan and Kenosha Counties, again fell short of meeting the 2015 ozone standards.
The problem Wisconsin cannot solve is emissions from other Midwest states that aren’t similarly regulated. They’re free of that because their pollution is removed by local meteorological effects to the air over Lake Michigan, where it concentrates along our shoreline – keeping us in the smog and leaving the contributors free to pollute.
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