It turns out that pollution-related heart and lung problems aren’t just for poor kids in the Bronx anymore. From yesterday’s New York Times:

A study that used the mass of data included in the Women’s Health Initiative found that women who lived in communities with relatively high levels of air pollution in the forms of tiny particles — aka soot — were far more likely to die because of heart attacks than women who lived in cleaner air. Results were published in February in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Cars, trucks, and diesel buses – the main culprits in the creation of particle pollution – spew untold millions of the microscopic pollutants into the air daily. Exercisers should take precautions against particles, experts said, by not exerting themselves near traffic, or, if they must use a path next to a highway, staying a few hundred yards away from vehicles.

Meanwhile, in related news, Bronx State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr. and Richard Lipsky’s Neighborhood Retail Alliance are holding a press conference on the steps of City Hall this Sunday, 11:30 am to protest "the failure" of Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion picing plan "to address the air quality in those neighborhoods that are experiencing a severe asthma problem." Diaz, Sr. says:

With all due respect to environmentalists, I cannot understand how these plans can be made without an environmental impact study being conducted first. There are many questions that have been left unanswered, and we need to have a thorough review of the matter before implementing any plan of action.

Photo: Richard Perry/The New York Times