Spokane’s clean air agency is celebrating the progress made in improving the region’s air over the last few decades.

The agency announced this week that Spokane County has reached a milestone. For the last 20 years, it has provided data to the federal government showing that the Spokane airshed routinely meets federal clean air standards. Now, that reporting obligation has ended.

“Newcomers talk about how awful our air quality is and we do get the wildfire smoke days. But we did have really awful air quality in the ‘70s, ‘80s and into the mid-‘90s,” said Clean Air Agency spokeswoman Lisa Woodard.

In 1990, the Environmental Protection Agency determined Spokane’s air was occasionally unhealthy, so it designed Spokane as a moderate “non-attainment” area for carbon monoxide and PM10, the pa

See Full Page