{"id":671228,"date":"2026-05-29T01:55:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T01:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/671228\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T01:55:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T01:55:21","slug":"does-pollution-from-the-midwest-hurt-maines-air-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/671228\/","title":{"rendered":"Does pollution from the Midwest hurt Maine\u2019s air quality?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yes.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/factBriefImage.jpeg\" alt=\"\" style=\"width:150px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Maine\u2019s air quality is affected by pollution from other parts of the country, including the Midwest.<\/p>\n<p>America\u2019s Health Rankings, a public health data platform funded by United Health Foundation, ranks Maine <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americashealthrankings.org\/explore\/measures\/air\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">fifth-best in the nation<\/a> for air quality, tied with Alaska and New Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But transported ozone \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/ground-level-ozone-pollution\/ground-level-ozone-basics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">a lung-irritating gas<\/a> formed when pollution reacts in sunlight \u2014 periodically hurts Maine\u2019s coastal air quality.<\/p>\n<p>Maine receives both ozone and ozone-forming pollutants from upwind states. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2020-06\/documents\/maine_section_176a_petition_2.6.20.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Maine Department of Environmental Protection<\/a> says emissions transported from the south and west are \u201csignificant contributors to elevated ozone levels along Maine\u2019s coast.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause of atmospheric transport patterns, Maine is often referred to as \u2018the tailpipe\u2019 of the U.S., being a downwind destination of pollutants carried by both short- and long-distance transporting air movement,\u201d Maine DEP wrote in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maine.gov\/dep\/ftp\/otr-petition\/FINAL%20OTR%20Petition.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">2018 Clean Air Act petition<\/a> to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.<\/p>\n<p>This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/Maine\/comments\/1ssia4a\/in_the_us_where_people_breathe_increasingly_dirty\/ohmf4e0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">this one<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Maine Trust for Local News partners with <a href=\"https:\/\/gigafact.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Gigafact<\/a> to produce fact briefs \u2014 bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our <a href=\"https:\/\/gigafact.org\/guidelines-principles-and-methodologies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">methodology<\/a> to learn how we check claims.<\/p>\n<p>Sources<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yes. Maine\u2019s air quality is affected by pollution from other parts of the country, including the Midwest. America\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-671228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}