Clean air hovers over Lacey

The air quality in Lacey is -in a word – good.   That’s coming from the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency (ORCAA), which monitors the air  quality in five local counties, including Thurston County.

OK – here are the statistics.

In 2015, the air was clean and good for 286 days – or 91 percent.   It was moderate for 21 days – unhealthy for sensitive groups for 5 days and unhealthy for one day.   That one day being in December of last month.

We had a drought last summer which meant that the rain wasn’t able to wash away air particles as it usually does, and yet we had very clean air all year – except when we had one day of smoke each in July and August from Eastern Washington forest fires.

What’s more amazing about the clean air statistics, is that the monitoring station for Lacey is at Mt. View Elementary School which is located right on College Street, one of the busiest streets in the county.  If we are getting air pollution from automobiles – it isn’t showing up at the monitoring station.