The Missouri Department of Natural Resources says that air quality standards have been violated in Kansas City area and in Saint Louis Area. Between April 1st and October 31st ozone levels were above the eight-hour standards on six days.

Spokesperson of the DNR Renee Bongart explains why air quality is an important issue

Really today we are just letting Missouri that we do have concerns so we just everebody to understand that there are some air quality issues but we are going to work resolving those. Improving air quality is to protect human health and the environment, there are populations that are very sensitive to poor air quality so our overall gall is to so that those individuals are not affected.

Bongart also says that the Environmental Protection Agency which sets the ozone standards is currently considering lowering them. She says some additional counties could be exceeding the limits in that case. © Copyright 2012, KBIA