Fayette County

is one of the most unhealthy counties in the country when it comes to

air pollution.

That's the

assessment from the American Lung Association's State of the Air report

released this week.

Fayette ranked

as the 23rd most polluted county in this year's survey. Fulton County

remains the state's most polluted and ranked as the seventh most polluted

nationally.

The report

states that more than 142 million Americans 75 percent of the nation's

population living in counties with ozone monitors are breathing unhealthy

amounts of ozone air pollution. The findings are compounded by the reality

that, due to a series of legal and management delays, states are relying

on weak federal clean air standards in place since 1979.

Among those

metropolitan areas scoring "Fs," the 10 most ozone-polluted

areas are Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County, Calif..; Bakersfield, Calif.;

Fresno, Calif.; Visalia-Tulare-Porterville,Calif.; Houston-Galveston-Brazoria,

Texas; Atlanta; Merced, Calif.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock

Hill, N.C.-S.C.; and Sacramento-Yolo, Calif.

"It is

clearly time to get serious about enforcing all of the provisions of the

Clean Air Act so that we place Americans' health above business and political

interests," said John L. Kirkwood, American Lung Association president

and CEO. "Yes, we've made great progress in cleaning our nation's

air, but this report illustrates that we have a long way to go to give

our children safe air to breathe."

Fayette County

was one of the four counties on the list of the 25 most ozone-polluted

counties this year were not on the list last year.

In its rankings,

the report said Fulton County had 86 days that were unhealthy to sensitive

groups, 22 unhealthy days for all the population and 9 that were very

unhealthy.

Fayette County had 55 unhealthy days for sensitive groups, 15 unhealthy

for all residents and three days that were very unhealthy.