The county also is one of 208 nationwide found last April to be in violation of federal limits for soot, the Philadelphia-based group PennEnvironment noted in a 28-page report, “Plagued by Pollution: Unsafe Levels of Soot Pollution in 2004.” the report was released in Harrisburg.

Last year, the group’s monitoring of soot data reported by each state placed the Lancaster area sixth-worst among mid-size metropolitan areas.

York-Hanover, Harrisburg-Carlisle and the Reading areas also make the top 10 worst mid-size metro areas list.

Experts say southcentral Pennsylvania is plagued by soot pollution partially because of its geographic location downwind from power plants in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and the Ohio Valley.

A 2004 study by consultants hired by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, Abt Associates, estimated that soot, also known as particulate matter, from U.S. power plants alone cause 23,600 premature deaths per year, in addition to 38,200 non-fatal heart attacks and 554,000 asthma attacks.

Groups most at risk from ingesting fine and coarse particles in the air are people with heart or lung diseases and children.

In addition to coal-burning power plants, diesel engines are a major source of soot.

Citing dirty coal-burning power plants as a major source of soot, Kevin M. Steward said this morning, “We must do more.”

Stewart, of Mount Joy, is director for environmental health for the American Lung Association of Pennsylvania. He helped present the report in Harrisburg today.

The report comes a month after the Bush Administration announced it would not tighten annual soot limits, even though EPA’s staff and a committee of independent scientists appointed by the agency for advice had strongly urged tougher controls and advised the agency that current standards do not adequately protect public health, as required by the federal Clean Air Act.

The American Lung Association and several environmental groups had sued EPA in 2003 to review soot levels.

EPA said it would slightly tighten the daily limits of soot that are permitted in metropolitan areas.

Agency officials say a separate initiative announced last year to reduce levels of pollutants from coal plants that drift into other states will have benefits for soot.

In fact, EPA predicts non-containment areas such as Lancaster will be brought into compliance by 2010.

That Clean Air Interstate Rule is a good step and is supported by ALA, Stewart says. “But, at the same time, pollution standards are required by law to be based on science to properly protect public health.

“Right now, there’s reams of scientific evidence that show the current standard has left no margin of safety for particle pollution.

“Just by changing the particle pollution standard by one microgram per cubic meter could save 9,000 lives a year,” he added. “That’s no small amount, and that kind of benefit is something we forego at our own peril.”

Stewart applauded the Bush Administration for requiring future diesel engines to burn cleaner by the end of the decade.

But he worries that the comeback of wood, and corn and wood pellet stoves, in Lancaster County could aggravate the soot problem in local neighborhoods.

Though wood stoves burn much cleaner than they did 20 years ago, the use of oil and gas is a much-cleaner source of heat, he said.

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