WOOD COUNTY HAS POOR AIR QUALITY - EPA Issues Compliance Order

(04/16/2004)
Wood County is among eleven West Virginia counties whose air quality must improve.

Wood and ten other West Virginia counties are among 474 counties in 31 states that have been told by the US Environmental Protection Agency to develop new pollution controls because the air in those areas does not meet air quality standards.

Facilities in those counties have failed to meet federal standards for smog-causing ozone.

John Benedict, director of the state Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Air Quality, says the counties have about five years to bring themselves into compliance.

West Virginia's other targeted counties include Kanawha, Putnam, Cabell, Wayne, Hancock, Brooke, Marshall, Ohio, Berkeley and Jefferson.

Most of West Virginia's targeted counties must meet the rules by June 2009.