New Hampshire: End of the Nation's Tailpipe?

Swimming to Christmas Tree Island is a rite of passage at Bear Hill 4-H Camp, complete with certificate. It’s been a tradition there at least since I was a camper in the late 1970’s and probably since the camp started in 1936. Since 2001, I’ve worked at Bear Hill as a volunteer swimming instructor.

When the campers come back from the swim they carry themselves with renewed pride and self-confidence. Changes in self image can be phenomenal. I’ve seen campers with behavioral problems learn that they can set a goal and reach it with hard work and determination. Reaching Christmas Tree Island is physical proof.

It isn’t easy to jump into nine feet or more of water. You can’t see the bottom and the water has spots of pond weed. We swim among nature’s creatures: fish, snakes, turtles and frogs. A Polish counselor who had just finished the swim confided that it is scary because it involves “jumping into the unknown.” It takes a lot of courage to face your fears of the unknown and to believe you can make it across the pond and back on your own power.

We do everything possible to help our campers succeed, and we take every precaution to ensure their safety. We swim at a leisurely pace. Life guards and swimming instructors watch the swimmers closely for any sign of distress.

During swim classes throughout the week, swimmers have trained their muscles and cardiovascular systems, while improving their stroke technique by swimming laps of different strokes: crawl, elementary backstroke, sidestroke and back crawl.

During the week we watch and evaluate swimmers to make sure they can accomplish the final ritual swim to the island. The campers often don’t realize what they have learned and how much they have improved their fitness until they take on this slightly scary challenge.

Everyone feels good after a leisurely swim in the pond. We usually go on hot, clear, sunny days. To help the children enjoy the experience and overcome their fears, we point out the trees, the sky, the sunlight glinting off the water. We show them the bubbles from fish and other wildlife.

Gasping breaths are out of place in this place of peace and beauty. So I wondered why one young woman, a competent swimmer, was having such a difficult time with the swim to Christmas Island .

With wide, fearful eyes, she worked hard to draw her next breath. I offered her the red rescue tube I was trailing and she took it. Relieved I wasn’t going to have to rescue a panicked swimmer—a physically hard and dangerous situation—I asked if she was okay. She said she’d lost her breath. I towed her on the tube to the island so she could rest. That she wasn’t able to make it to the island surprised me. During class she had swum much further distances at a much faster pace.

After reaching Christmas Tree Island, the camper I’d towed told me she had a reduced lung capacity that day because an unusual amount of pollution had affected her asthma.

She knew this, she said, because she was involved in INHALE (Integrated Human Health and Air Quality Research), a study the University of New Hampshire was doing at the camp with children affected by asthma and allergies. Every morning at breakfast, a graduate student researcher measured campers’ lung capacity to study the consequences of bad air quality.

This particular day was one of the ten “bad air” days that New Hampshire has on average during the summer. On these “bad air” days, public health officials warn that even the average person should avoid outdoor physical activity, while young children and the elderly should remain indoors with air conditioning. I saw first-hand the effect it had on one of my swimming students.

According to Dr. John Spengler of the Harvard School of Public Health, air pollution causes 60,000 deaths nationwide each year. But the deaths are only the tip of the iceberg.

Air pollution causes increased visits to the hospital emergency rooms, more inpatient admissions, more use of medication, and losses in workplace productivity.

When we think of air pollution, we tend to think of smog clouds hanging over Los Angeles , not a forested camp in New Hampshire . Learning that New England is known as the “tailpipe of the nation” shocked me.

Dr. Jeff Salloway, a UNH professor of health management and policy, heads the INHALE project. Salloway says asthma rates in the United States have increased 1000 percent in the past 30 years. More than 11 percent of New Hampshire children have been diagnosed with asthma at some point in their lives.

Even though we may think we live in a pristine environment here in New Hampshire, two weather systems funnel pollution from the Midwest and the entire Atlantic seaboard over New England before it moves out to sea. Salloway says that toxins carried in the polluted air—ozone, sulfur dioxide, and oxides of nitrogen, and others—cause asthma and other

But the news isn’t all bad. By gathering this data from projects like INHALE, researchers and weather reporters can help us change the situation.

Dr. Greg Carmichael of the University of Iowa said in an interview with PBS’s Online News Hour that the weather person may soon begin reporting, “here’s the snap shot of what the air quality will be tomorrow. But here’s what the air quality would be if 50 percent of the people decided not to drive.”

We can have some control over our environment. In some New Hampshire communities, people can take free rides on public transit systems during “bad air” days. The rides are paid for by a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency called Ride Free Breathe Free.

We can choose to carpool. We can choose to drive smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. We can contribute less to overall air pollution by walking or bicycling to work or school on “good air” days.

Preventing illness, saving lives, and maintaining our quality of life means recognizing the problems, knowing what to do, and making choices to change our behaviors. We can’t get lulled into believing we have no air pollution because we live in a rural area. Appearances can be deceiving.

Editor’s note: Look for the INHALE Web site which should go live in a few weeks.

For more information

UNH graduate student Tom Lambert, who studies the effects of air quality on human health, offers these links for air quality forecasts and real time air quality data:

• New England air Quality Forecast
• Local Forecasts and Coditions
• National Weather Service Air Quality Forecast Guidance
• University of New Hampehire’s AIRMAP air quality forecast

By Bonnie Barlow, UNH Cooperative Extension Community Tree Steward and 4-H Volunteer