Air Quality Status Within Guidelines

(Jefferson City, MO) Leaders with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources announced today that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is recording the air quality designation status in portions of Jefferson and Jackson counties within the range of "attainment" for the outdoor air quality standard for sulfur dioxide. This marks the culmination of nearly a decade of work by the Department of Natural Resources and Missouri's industries to improve air quality in these areas. In 2013 EPA designated portions of these two counties as nonattainment, because air quality monitors were regularly measuring violations of the SO2 air standard. The department worked with industries, and other stakeholders, to develop a plan to bring those areas into compliance. By 2017, the air monitors that had previously registered air quality violations, had come into compliance as a result of the planned changes. The monitored air quality in these two areas has remained in compliance ever since.