Breathing Room
Ensuring local air quality continues to improve
Despite dramatic improvements in local air quality over the last decade, Mecklenburg County and the entire Charlotte region only narrowly meet the health-based standard for ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter. Mecklenburg County Air Quality's (MCAQ) goal is not just to maintain compliance with air quality standards, but to put some "breathing room" between our local data and the health standards. This is good for public health and decreases the likelihood that our region will violate the health-based standard in the future.
MCAQ's efforts to continue the positive trend of improving air quality focus on the following areas:
Background
Breathing Room is about taking proactive steps to reduce air pollution and maintain healthy air quality in the Charlotte region. It was first developed in partnership with the North Carolina Division of Air Quality (NCDAQ) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Advance Program based on community input from almost 500 community members who helped shape the region's plan to create Breathing Room! The stakeholders came from across the region ranging from high school youth and college students, to elected officials and city planners, to business and manufacturing leaders and non-governmental organizations.