Detroit (AP): Smoky air from Canada’s wildfires shrouded broad swaths of the U.S. from Minnesota to New York and Kentucky on Wednesday, prompting warnings to stay inside and exacerbating health risks for people already suffering from industrial pollution.
The impacts are particularly hard on poor and minority communities that are more likely to live near polluting plants and have higher rates of asthma. Detroit, a mostly Black city with a poverty rate of about 30%, had some of the worst air quality in the U.S. on Wednesday, prompting the Environmental Protection Agency to warn that “everyone should stay indoors.’’
“The more breaths you’re taking, you’re inhaling, literally, a fire, camp smoke, into your lungs,’’ said Darren Riley, who was diagnosed with asthma in 2018, a few years after arriving in Detroit.
“Many communities face this way too often,’’ said Riley, who is Black. “And while this wildfire smoke allows, unfortunately, many people to feel this burden, this is a burden that far too long communities have faced day in and day out.’’
The EPA’s AirNow.gov site showed cities including Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, Ohio, had “very unhealthy air’’ as of Wednesday afternoon. A wider circle of unhealthy air spread into Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Louisville, Kentucky.
Earlier this month, smoke from the wildfires blanketed the U.S. East Coast for days.
Another round of drifting smoke from the wildfires was moving through western Pennsylvania and central New York and headed toward the Mid-Atlantic, said National Weather Service meteorologist Byran Jackson. In Canada, smoke will migrate across Quebec and Ontario over the next few days, Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Steven Flisfeder said.
In the U.S., the smoke is exacerbating air quality issues for poor and Black communities that already are more likely to live near polluting plants, and in rental housing with mold and other triggers.
Detroit’s southwest side is home to a number of sprawling refineries and manufacturing plants. It is one of the poorest parts of the city. According to a 2022 report by the American Lung Association, the city’s and short-term particle pollution ranked among the worst in the nation.
By Mike Householder
and Corey Williams
