How far we've come in 60 years.

[Toronado3800]

Black Tuesday - St. Louis Post Dispatch Article

'Black Tuesday' led to changes in air quality here
By Tim O'Neil
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Sunday, Nov. 29 2009
ST. LOUIS -- City dwellers woke up on Nov. 28, 1939, in a thick fog of acrid
coal smoke. Suburbanites heading to work saw a low dome of darkness covering
neighborhoods east of Kingshighway.

In a streetcar downtown at 8 a.m., a commuter told the driver, "Let me off at
13th and Washington — if you can find it." Motorists drove slowly with
headlights on. Streetlights, still on, made ghostly glows.

The day became infamous as Black Tuesday, the worst of many smoke-choked days
in what was to be St. Louis' smokiest cold-weather season. The city already was
known for the nation's filthiest air, worse even than Pittsburgh's.

The reason was the area's reliance on cheap, dirty, high-sulfur "soft" coal dug
from the hills and hollows across the Mississippi River in Illinois....

Wow, can't believe folks thought that strongly against the soft coal ban. To get around the big government ban they snuck it in not noticing or caring about the damage being done. I remember reading a sign at the Botanical Garden explaining the dirty coal as the reason they had no old pine trees.

 

[Toronado3800]

LA Air Pollution

Fifty years of fighting smog has helped. In 1977, the Southland had 121 Stage 1 smog-alerts, 79 in 1986 and just 7 in 1996. With a little more work, they'll soon be eliminated.

Interesting. I didn't think the air there was soo good now either.