Does pollution from the Midwest hurt Maine’s air quality? | Fact brief

Maine’s air quality is affected by pollution from other parts of the country, including the Midwest.

America’s Health Rankings, a public health data platform funded by United Health Foundation, ranks Maine fifth-best in the nation for air quality, tied with Alaska and New Mexico. 

But transported ozone — a lung-irritating gas formed when pollution reacts in sunlight — periodically hurts Maine’s coastal air quality.

Maine receives both ozone and ozone-forming pollutants from upwind states. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection says emissions transported from the south and west are “significant contributors to elevated ozone levels along Maine’s coast.”

“Because of atmospheric transport patterns, Maine is often referred to as ‘the tailpipe’ of the U.S., being a downwind destination of pollutants carried by both short- and long-distance transporting air movement,” Maine DEP wrote in a 2018 Clean Air Act petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.