Air pollution improving in eastern Arkansas

The Environmental Protection Agency has reconsidered the air-pollution status it recently placed on the Memphis area, including Crittenden County, Arkansas. The E.P.A lowered the Clean Air Act classification for two Memphis-area counties to "marginal nonattainment" because the area had shown it would achieve clean air standards thre years earlier than required. Crittenden County complained when it was lumped in as an air pollutor with Shelby County, Tennessee, home of central Memphis. Studies showed suburban Crittenden County only accounted for 10 percent of the five-county region`s air pollutants. E.P.A Administrator Mike Leavitt traveled to West Memphis to announce the change. He and local leaders said the area is committed to controlling emissions from heavy diesel trucks and industrial emissions in Shelby County and to monitor and evaluate measures in Marion, Arkansas. Marion recently lost the chance to attract at least three industrial plants becaue of the E.P.A`s original "moderate nonattainment" label.