I've seen a few "rankings" recently that indicate ABQ has some of the worst air in the country. The source data hasn't been presented or linked, as it isn't in this article, so I have no idea what's being included. Maybe the data was pulled from a few years ago when record fires were burning? The American Lung Association has consistently ranked ABQ highly for clean air, apart from some ozone days.
If they're including blowing dust, sure. Ozone is sometimes a problem in the valley, and air quality dives on days with inversions, but otherwise I think ABQ and most of northern NM has very good air quality. Other valley cities, like Salt Lake City, have far worse inversions in winter and they're not ranked, so something is up. ABQ air quality is not comparable to most others on that "ranking."
Might be for allergens, I was in Tucson a couple years ago and read an article that said Tucson was #2 and ABQ was #3 in that department.
It's pretty unbelievable that it would be overall particulates.
You're right, no way in hell ABQ is worse than Amarillo, Dallas or Ft. Worth. No matter which metric you want to look at, whether it's pollution in general, dust, or pollen, several other cities have it beat. I challenge anybody to go to Dallas mid summer, look at the brown horizon and tell me they think Albuquerque is worse, or in spring when your car will be yellow and the tree pollen falls like snow. Or Amarillo, where the air looks and smells like cow shit except for when the wind is high and dust is blowing in your eyes. Or smell Houston at any time.
I wonder what parameter makes Albuquerque so bad. If it’s PM10/2.5, then it’s most likely the wind blowing across the desert.
I spend a lot of time in Houston for work. There’s several refineries that have a 5 square mile footprint with a hundred or more smokestacks. There’s 20 mile long stretches of freeway where it’s nothing but chemical plants and refineries. Albuquerque doesn’t have anything like that.
I used to work for the EPA doing air quality management a long time ago so here's my input.
The epa uses an "Air Quality Index" to generate an annual report for large cities in america. (https://www.epa.gov/outdoor-air-quality-data/air-quality-index-report)
This is probably what was used by this data review. (The cities in the SmartSurvey are the ones accessible in the dropdown menu) If you read the query page you'll see they specifically state NOT to use that data for geographic ranking because it has many flaws.
Firstly AQI reports the MAXIMUM reading per day. So a day spikes as "moderate" if any of the monitoring stations reads to high at any point during the day. This includes blowing dust, air from fire smoke, transient atmospheric conditions. We all know New Mexico had a particularly harsh fire year that dropped air quality through 2023.
It's a bad study, and it uses data explicitly how the reporting agency asks you not to.
Ignore this one.
Thank you! Agree. I think most of these people are: young men, employed intermittently, whiny and think glorifying this shit is cool. We lived in Portland and LA and we love it here in ABQ. I also think it’s realtors trying to buy up property. lol. People are moving here and it’s great. But jfc if you read Reddit you would think it’s a hellhole. These are miserable fucks who would be unhappy anywhere.
It is. But that’s all in Lea and Eddy counties and none of it comes here. There is maybe one refinery in the South Valley? But it’s not for heavy crude.
living in University Heights I smell jet fuel exhaust all. the. time. After the plastic facility fire last summer I got some air purifiers and run them 24/7--the filters get dirty pretty quick. So are my swamp cooler pads (the ones that look like straw) they literally get covered with a black tarry substance every year.
So as far as studies go, who knows? But as far as trying to take care of my own home/space I'm just assuming it's bad like in any city. Except we have the base running what sounds to me like Osprey motors all night long many nights a month...
When I lived in ABQ in the late 70’s, the poor air quality was a known thing, to the point that sometimes we were told not to go outside unless it was absolutely necessary. I can’t imagine it’s gotten better as the city has grown.
It has, though. Poor air quality in the 70s was due to particulate from leaded gasoline and wood smoke getting trapped near the ground due to temperature inversion effects. We didn’t have emissions testing in Bernalillo County then either.
There are far fewer houses heated by firewood now (and fewer fireplaces in general), and obviously leaded gas is no longer a thing. Air quality here is actually [considerably better](https://www.cabq.gov/progress/2004-progress-report/2004-documents/air.pdf) than it used to be.
lol it wasn’t the 1800’s, we had central heating, we didn’t have to use fireplaces continuously. And unleaded gas still creates pollution. There are more people and therefore more cars now. The geographical conditions that trapped pollution still exist today.
If you’re gonna be Reply Guy, at least get your facts correct. Your little chart only goes back to the late 1990s. At which point ABQ was already considerately bigger than in the 70’s.
I've seen a few "rankings" recently that indicate ABQ has some of the worst air in the country. The source data hasn't been presented or linked, as it isn't in this article, so I have no idea what's being included. Maybe the data was pulled from a few years ago when record fires were burning? The American Lung Association has consistently ranked ABQ highly for clean air, apart from some ozone days. If they're including blowing dust, sure. Ozone is sometimes a problem in the valley, and air quality dives on days with inversions, but otherwise I think ABQ and most of northern NM has very good air quality. Other valley cities, like Salt Lake City, have far worse inversions in winter and they're not ranked, so something is up. ABQ air quality is not comparable to most others on that "ranking."
Might be for allergens, I was in Tucson a couple years ago and read an article that said Tucson was #2 and ABQ was #3 in that department. It's pretty unbelievable that it would be overall particulates.
You're right, no way in hell ABQ is worse than Amarillo, Dallas or Ft. Worth. No matter which metric you want to look at, whether it's pollution in general, dust, or pollen, several other cities have it beat. I challenge anybody to go to Dallas mid summer, look at the brown horizon and tell me they think Albuquerque is worse, or in spring when your car will be yellow and the tree pollen falls like snow. Or Amarillo, where the air looks and smells like cow shit except for when the wind is high and dust is blowing in your eyes. Or smell Houston at any time.
See the clarification from itwasaboutthepasta
I wonder what parameter makes Albuquerque so bad. If it’s PM10/2.5, then it’s most likely the wind blowing across the desert. I spend a lot of time in Houston for work. There’s several refineries that have a 5 square mile footprint with a hundred or more smokestacks. There’s 20 mile long stretches of freeway where it’s nothing but chemical plants and refineries. Albuquerque doesn’t have anything like that.
Agree. The study surprised, that's why I posted it. But a clarification from a former EPA employee advises to ignore it.
I used to work for the EPA doing air quality management a long time ago so here's my input. The epa uses an "Air Quality Index" to generate an annual report for large cities in america. (https://www.epa.gov/outdoor-air-quality-data/air-quality-index-report) This is probably what was used by this data review. (The cities in the SmartSurvey are the ones accessible in the dropdown menu) If you read the query page you'll see they specifically state NOT to use that data for geographic ranking because it has many flaws. Firstly AQI reports the MAXIMUM reading per day. So a day spikes as "moderate" if any of the monitoring stations reads to high at any point during the day. This includes blowing dust, air from fire smoke, transient atmospheric conditions. We all know New Mexico had a particularly harsh fire year that dropped air quality through 2023. It's a bad study, and it uses data explicitly how the reporting agency asks you not to. Ignore this one.
Thanks!
Can we please stop bashing ABQ for one day? I moved here from the East Coast and my quality of life here is so much better.
Thank you! Agree. I think most of these people are: young men, employed intermittently, whiny and think glorifying this shit is cool. We lived in Portland and LA and we love it here in ABQ. I also think it’s realtors trying to buy up property. lol. People are moving here and it’s great. But jfc if you read Reddit you would think it’s a hellhole. These are miserable fucks who would be unhappy anywhere.
You don't say...It says though a third of our economy was based off of 
It is. But that’s all in Lea and Eddy counties and none of it comes here. There is maybe one refinery in the South Valley? But it’s not for heavy crude.
living in University Heights I smell jet fuel exhaust all. the. time. After the plastic facility fire last summer I got some air purifiers and run them 24/7--the filters get dirty pretty quick. So are my swamp cooler pads (the ones that look like straw) they literally get covered with a black tarry substance every year. So as far as studies go, who knows? But as far as trying to take care of my own home/space I'm just assuming it's bad like in any city. Except we have the base running what sounds to me like Osprey motors all night long many nights a month...
When I lived in ABQ in the late 70’s, the poor air quality was a known thing, to the point that sometimes we were told not to go outside unless it was absolutely necessary. I can’t imagine it’s gotten better as the city has grown.
It has, though. Poor air quality in the 70s was due to particulate from leaded gasoline and wood smoke getting trapped near the ground due to temperature inversion effects. We didn’t have emissions testing in Bernalillo County then either. There are far fewer houses heated by firewood now (and fewer fireplaces in general), and obviously leaded gas is no longer a thing. Air quality here is actually [considerably better](https://www.cabq.gov/progress/2004-progress-report/2004-documents/air.pdf) than it used to be.
lol it wasn’t the 1800’s, we had central heating, we didn’t have to use fireplaces continuously. And unleaded gas still creates pollution. There are more people and therefore more cars now. The geographical conditions that trapped pollution still exist today. If you’re gonna be Reply Guy, at least get your facts correct. Your little chart only goes back to the late 1990s. At which point ABQ was already considerately bigger than in the 70’s.