美国国家公共电台 NPR When Wildfire Smoke Invades, Who Should Pay To Clean Indoor Air?

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

This past wildfire season, there were unprecedented¹ amounts of wildfire smoke in communities across western Montana. Instead of just issuing warnings, public health agencies tried something new - actually making the air cleaner in the homes of vulnerable residents. Nora Saks from Montana Public Radio reports.

NORA SAKS, BYLINE²: Wildfire smoke is bad for everybody but especially older folks and those with chronic³ heart and lung diseases. The Dunagans, who live in Seeley Lake, Mont., check both boxes.

JOY DUNAGAN: We put towels around the doors, the windows, everything. Grime from the smoke came in through the whole house.

SAKS: Joy and her husband Don are 69 years old and are on oxygen. She's a stroke survivor⁴. He recently developed asbestosis after almost 40 years working in an aluminum⁵ factory.

DON DUNAGAN: I've got less than 50 percent breathing capacity right now.

SAKS: Then a wildfire blew up half a mile from their cozy⁶ log home.

D. DUNAGAN: That smoke on top of it - it was killing⁷ me.

SAKS: But with no family in state and limited mobility⁸, they had to stay in their house all summer. An appliance called a HEPA air filter made that possible. It removes the fine particulates⁹ in woodsmoke that are so hazardous¹⁰. It resembles a space heater. Amy Cilimburg is busy installing a new one in a corner of their living room.

AMY CILIMBURG: There's a prefilter - takes out the large stuff. And then that's the HEPA filter.

SAKS: She's the director of a nonprofit called Climate Smart Missoula. When wildfire smoke swamped Seeley Lake, Missoula County's health department worked with Climate Smart to distribute HEPA filters to at-risk residents. Don says he slept next to it in his recliner every single night.

D. DUNAGAN: I believe that that machine saved my life. I really do.

SAKS: Kids are also extra vulnerable to the pollutants¹¹ in smoke. So when the wildfires dragged on into September, Missoula County and Climate Smart scrambled¹² to put filters in the worst-hit schools. The county health department's Ellen Leahy says that strategy of finding a solution and taking action was a big shift.

ELLEN LEAHY: Messaging that the air isn't good isn't enough. There has to be a more concerted effort to provide clean indoor air. We have to plan to be able to do that and deploy¹³ those systems much more quickly.

SAKS: The challenge is figuring out who pays for it. Portable HEPA air filters that can clean a big room cost under $200 each. It costs about $30,000 to put them in just three schools last fire season. And the money the county pitched in to buy filters last minute came from emergency funds, which quickly dried up. Leahy says they tried their best to respond to the need.

LEAHY: But it was very, I would say, makeshift.

SAKS: The county health department wasn't equipped to launch a large-scale emergency response because they're set up to regulate easily controlled, manmade sources of air pollution, like factories or woodstoves. But scientists predict wildfires are only going to get worse. So public health departments see a need for a more proactive approach. That's going to require some creativity, Leahy says, because right now...

LEAHY: There's not a new source of funding that we're aware - there's not a pathway for us to do that.

SAKS: The state also lacks resources for wildfire smoke, says Jim Murphy with Montana's health department. And given Montana's budget shortfall...

JIM MURPHY: I don't anticipate that there's going to be a lot of new monies coming or anything like that. I think it's maybe making the best of what we already have.

SAKS: For now, the state will keep supporting local health agencies. And the county health department will continue to work with Climate Smart. They're also encouraging larger public institutions, like school districts, to improve their air filtration systems and pay for them from their own budgets. For NPR News, I'm Nora Saks in Missoula, Mont.

(SOUNDBITE OF STAN FOREBEE'S "SWITCH")

GARCIA-NAVARRO: This story is part of a reporting partnership¹⁴ with NPR, Montana Public Radio and Kaiser Health News.

(SOUNDBITE OF STAN FOREBEE'S "SWITCH")

1 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 chronic   

adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的

参考例句：

• Famine differs from chronic malnutrition.饥荒不同于慢性营养不良。
• Chronic poisoning may lead to death from inanition.慢性中毒也可能由虚弱导致死亡。

4 survivor   

n.生存者，残存者，幸存者

参考例句：

• The sole survivor of the crash was an infant.这次撞车的惟一幸存者是一个婴儿。
• There was only one survivor of the plane crash.这次飞机失事中只有一名幸存者。

5 aluminum   

n.(aluminium)铝

参考例句：

• The aluminum sheets cannot be too much thicker than 0.04 inches.铝板厚度不能超过0.04英寸。
• During the launch phase,it would ride in a protective aluminum shell.在发射阶段，它盛在一只保护的铝壳里。

6 cozy   

adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的

参考例句：

• I like blankets because they are cozy.我喜欢毛毯，因为他们是舒适的。
• We spent a cozy evening chatting by the fire.我们在炉火旁聊天度过了一个舒适的晚上。

7 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

8 mobility   

n.可动性，变动性，情感不定

参考例句：

• The difference in regional house prices acts as an obstacle to mobility of labour.不同地区房价的差异阻碍了劳动力的流动。
• Mobility is very important in guerrilla warfare.机动性在游击战中至关重要。

9 particulates   

n.微粒，粒子( particulate的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Techniques for controlling particulates include filtering, washing, centrifugal separation, and electrostatic precipitation. 控制颗粒污染物的技术包括过滤、洗涤、离心分离、静电沉降。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Only micronic particulates penetrate to the depth of the lung. 只有微细粒子穿透到肺深部。 来自辞典例句

10 hazardous   

adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的

参考例句：

• These conditions are very hazardous for shipping.这些情况对航海非常不利。
• Everybody said that it was a hazardous investment.大家都说那是一次危险的投资。

11 pollutants   

污染物质（尤指工业废物）( pollutant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Pollutants are constantly being released into the atmosphere. 污染物质正在不断地被排放到大气中去。
• The 1987 Amendments limit 301(g) discharges to a few well-studied nonconventional pollutants. 1987年的修正案把第301条（g）的普通排放限制施加在一些认真研究过的几种非常规污染物上。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

12 scrambled   

v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞

参考例句：

• Each scrambled for the football at the football ground. 足球场上你争我夺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He scrambled awkwardly to his feet. 他笨拙地爬起身来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 deploy   

v.（军）散开成战斗队形，布置，展开

参考例句：

• The infantry began to deploy at dawn.步兵黎明时开始进入战斗位置。
• The president said he had no intention of deploying ground troops.总统称并不打算部署地面部队。

14 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。