{"id":98571,"date":"2025-12-29T10:26:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T10:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/98571\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T10:26:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T10:26:32","slug":"states-with-the-worst-air-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/98571\/","title":{"rendered":"States with the worst air quality"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 This year, U.S. News & World Report has released its latest ranking of the states<\/a> with the best and worst air\/water quality.<\/p>\n

According to researchers, the study breaks down both of these factors using the following EPA data:<\/p>\n

Drinking Water Quality \u2014 The number of violation points accrued over five years by public water systems per 1,000 customers served <\/p>\n

Air Quality \u2014 The population-weighted average of available county-level figures reflecting the number of days the Air Quality Index was not rated \u2018good.\u2019<\/p>\n

Overall, the top state on both counts turned out to be Hawaii, though the Sunshine State didn\u2019t fall too far off.<\/p>\n

In fact, Florida scored at No. 6 overall \u2014 No. 16 for air quality, and No. 13 for drinking water quality.<\/p>\n

That said, some areas of the state have better quality than others. For example, the American Lung Association lists in its 2025 \u201cState of the Air<\/a>\u201d report that only the following counties scored an \u201cA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alachua<\/p>\n

Baker<\/p>\n

Bay<\/p>\n

Brevard<\/p>\n

Broward<\/p>\n

Collier<\/p>\n

Columbia<\/p>\n

Flagler<\/p>\n

Holmes<\/p>\n

Indian River<\/p>\n

Lake<\/p>\n

Leon<\/p>\n

Liberty<\/p>\n

Manatee<\/p>\n

Martin<\/p>\n

Okaloosa<\/p>\n

Osceola<\/p>\n

Palm Beach<\/p>\n

Pasco<\/p>\n

Santa Rosa<\/p>\n

Sarasota<\/p>\n

Seminole<\/p>\n

St. Lucie<\/p>\n

Volusia<\/p>\n

Wakulla<\/p>\n

While the report doesn\u2019t account for every county due to limited data, only one area of the state received the lowest \u201cC\u201d grade: Hillsborough County, which reportedly had four orange days<\/a> on record.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the rest of U.S. News & World\u2019s report is as follows:<\/p>\n

Overall RankStateAir Quality RankWater Quality Rank1Hawaii112Massachusetts1123Virginia9144Maryland1095Washington13246Florida16137South Carolina2258South Dakota15269New York182010Rhode Island172211New Hampshire44212New Jersey202513Nebraska192714Tennessee27315North Carolina231616Kentucky29617Alabama36418North Dakota261819Minnesota321220Idaho64321Missouri252322Oregon144023Georgia40724Ohio351125Connecticut213726Delaware42827Wisconsin282928Utah342129Louisiana243530Wyoming54631Colorado313332Arkansas392833Mississippi431534Kansas303435Vermont74436Michigan413637Iowa453038Indiana373839West Virginia84740New Mexico333941Illinois471942Nevada481743Maine34944Texas463145California491046Pennsylvania384147Montana124848Alaska25049Arizona503250Oklahoma4445Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n

Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 This year, U.S. News & World Report has released its latest ranking of the states…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1563,6919,28,30,29,785],"class_list":{"0":"post-98571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-features","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-florida-headlines","12":"tag-florida-news","13":"tag-florida-ranked"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}