United Press International, Al Swanson
Published April 27, 2005
A hotel at O'Hare International Airport recently began offering special "enviro-rooms" for guests suffering from asthma or allergies to give them relief from coughing, sneezing, wheezing, headaches, chest tightness and nasal congestion.
Enhancing air quality in just two of the hotel's 858 rooms cost thousands of dollars. Hilton wants to assess guest response to the new rooms for a month before deciding whether to expand the pilot program to 300 rooms at a cost of $7,000 to $15,000 per room.
The "environ-rooms" have air purifiers, air-quality monitors, new hardwood flooring, non-vinyl wallpaper, wood furniture, all-cotton bedding and wooden blinds. The rooms are continuously monitored for temperature, relative humidity, odor, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and other gasses.
"Asthma attacks and allergies are frequently triggered by exposure to dusts, molds or chemicals," said Nicholas Nardella, president of Environmental Technology Solutions Inc. of Glen Ellyn, Ill., which is doing the retrofitting. "In addition to the rooms being monitored on a minute-by-minute basis, each room is sanitized and purified after each guest and only products and amenities that are toxin-free are used and stocked in the room."
"Literally everything was removed from these rooms -- floor coverings, wall coverings, drapes, furniture, bedding -- everything," said J. Peter Lynn, general manager of the Hilton Chicago O'Hare Airport.
The rooms, which come at no additional cost, are believed to be the first of their kind in the nation. A premium charge will be tested in May to determine whether guests are willing pay for the clean-environment amenities.
A study by the American Lung Association found more than 50 million U.S. residents live with unhealthy levels of ozone and air pollution. More than 20 million people are asthmatic and as many as 70 million suffer from various allergies, according to the National Center for Health Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Exhaust fumes from diesel buses, trucks, construction equipment and coal-fired power plants have made air in the Chicago area as dirty as the air in New York City, according to the American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago.
While national air quality improved in parts of the country between 2001 and 2003 because of federal Clean Air Act initiatives, many urban areas remain among the unhealthiest for fine particulate matter that can cause lung disease, lung cancer, strokes and cardiovascular disease.
High levels of ozone cause shortness of breath, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and trigger asthma attacks.
"We're not meeting ozone smog standards in the Chicago area and we're not meeting fine particle, or what people usually think of as soot pollution levels, either," Brian Urbaszewski, director of the lung association's environmental health programs, told Chicago Public Radio.
-- Nearly half the U.S. population (49 percent) lives in areas with unhealthy levels of ozone.
-- More than 26 percent live in areas with unhealthy short-term levels of particulate pollution.
-- One-in-five lives in areas with unhealthy year-round levels of particulate pollution.
-- About 50.2 million Americans, nearly 17 percent, live in 47 counties with unhealthy levels of all three types of air pollutions: ozone and short-term and year-round particle pollution.
Adults 65 and older, children under 18, adults and children with asthma, chronic bronchitis, lung disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetes are more at risk from air pollution, according to the American Lung Association's "State of the Air: 2005" report released Thursday.
"Dirty air threatens the lives and health of far too many Americans," said John L. Kirkwood, president and chief executive officer of the American Lung Association. "Unfortunately, some of the largest producers of dirty air are big energy companies, who have worked with their friends in Congress on legislation to change the rules so they don't have to clean up their pollution. Fortunately, the Senate recently blocked that bill, but the vote was very close. We need to ask ourselves: Why was Congress even considering a bill that protects corporate polluters instead of the public?"
Car-dependent Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Fresno, Hanford and Visalia, Calif., were among the worst for levels of ozone and particulate pollution in the nation.
A study released by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group estimated smoggy air costs Californians more than $521 million a year because of missed school days, visits to emergency rooms and hospital admissions.
Nine counties in the Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside areas had ozone levels more than double the level considered safe for children to play outdoors on bad air days.
The non-profit environmental advocacy group said California could prevent 3.3 million school absences and 4,000 asthma-related hospitalizations a year by adopting tougher air-quality standards. California's Air Resources Board met Thursday in El Monte to consider stricter ozone limits in the state's 34 air-quality districts.
New York, Newark, N.J., and Bridgeport, Conn., had the dirtiest air in the Northeast; Washington, Baltimore and Pittsburgh in the Mid-Atlantic; Cleveland, Columbus, Ohio, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah, in their region; Birmingham, Ala., Louisville, Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., and Knoxville, Tenn., in the Southeast; and Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth in the South.
In his recent State of the City address, Houston Mayor Bill White asked eight scientists and medical doctors on a task force on reducing air-quality risks for advice on cutting pollution and protecting public health.
Eugene and Springfield in Oregon had the unhealthiest air in the Northwest.
"Evidence is mounting each year underscoring just how dangerous air pollution really is. The more we learn, the more critical cleaning up the air becomes," said Dr. Norman H. Edelman, executive vice president and chief medical officer of the American Lung Association.
The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America is using National Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month in May as an opportunity to help asthma suffers properly do spring cleaning at home and at work to reduce allergy symptoms.
The foundation recommends maintaining humidity below 50 percent, vacuuming regularly with a double-bag or Hepa filter vacuum cleaner, keeping pets off furniture, bathing cats and dogs weekly, encasing mattresses and pillows in airtight, allergen-proof covers and laundering bed linens in 130-degree water weekly.
People suffering from mold allergies can use exhaust fans, run air conditioning during humid months, fix leaky pipes and use an EPA-registered cleaning solution containing bleach to kill mold spores on hard non-porous surfaces.
"With indoor allergies, an ounce of prevention is truly worth a pound of cure," said Dr. Jay Portnoy, chief of allergy, asthma and immunology at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo.
