The air pollution in Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska (Fairbanks), is among the worst in the nation, and the EPA is doing nothing about it. That’s the view of several citizen groups that with the assistance of major U.S. environmental organizations are now suing the Agency for inaction for the third time in 2 years. According to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Fairbanks has the nation’s worst spikes in PM-2.5 pollution, worse than Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and Detroit combined, according to one report.
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The complaint centers on the failure of Fairbanks to come into attainment with EPA’s 2006 24-hour National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for PM-2.5 within 6 years of November 2009, when Fairbanks was designated as nonattainment. If, at this point, the EPA determines that area remains out of attainment, the Clean Air Act requires that the Agency publish a notice of reclassification of the area as a serious nonattainment area, which triggers stricter pollution control measures. The EPA has not made such a redesignation, allege the groups.