Lawrence residents can breathe easy — literally.

Organic Style magazine rated Lawrence 30th out of 125 cities in its ranking of least-polluted “healthy cities” nationwide. The city ranked 13th in the country for its relatively clean air.

“That’s OK. It’s obviously the better half of the country,” said Robert Weinhold, a freelance journalist and author of the rankings. “Even the best cities, there will be certain toxic threats. But overall, 30 is relatively good.”

Lawrence placed behind Columbia, Mo. — ninth overall — and ahead of Wichita, 67th, and Kansas City, Mo., 106th. The top-rated city was Santa Fe, N.M. Each city was ranked according to four main factors:

• Air quality, determined by Environmental Protection Agency air records, plus an estimation of vehicle miles traveled within the city. Lawrence ranked 13th in this measure.
• Toxics, determined by the EPA’s toxic release inventory and a headcount of manufacturers, among other criteria. Lawrence ranked 26th here.
• Agriculture. The more agricultural acreage near a city, Weinhold said, the more expected pollution from pesticides and fertilizers. This was Lawrence’s worst ranking, 82nd of the 125 cities.
• Regional pollution. Weinhold’s study determined that Lawrence sits on the western edge of one of the dirtiest U.S. regions — ninth out of 10 regions — an area that covers Missouri and parts of Iowa, Illinois and several southeastern states.


Erin Urich, Lawrence, picks out an acorn squash at the Lawrence Farmer's Market. Organic Style magazine ranked Lawrence as 30th in the nation for being one of the least polluted, most healthy cities in the country. Urich purchased fresh produce on Tuesday at the market, which is open three times a week -- Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays -- in downtown Lawrence.

City officials and environmentalists welcomed the news of Lawrence’s favorable ranking.

“It sounds like the study confirms what I think most people intuitively sense about Lawrence, that it is a clean, healthy environment overall,” Mayor David Dunfield said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re attractive to people.”

Bruce Plenk, an environmental attorney, agreed.

“I actually think Lawrence ought to be higher on that list,” he said.

¢ 6News video: Lawrence ranked among healthy cities¢Organic Style’s healthiest cities

Both men noted, however, that the Kansas River which runs through Lawrence and supplies much of the city’s drinking water is notoriously dirty.

“It would be great to reduce water pollution,” Plenk said. “It would be great to decrease the pollution in the rivers, both by urban runoff and agricultural waste. I’m optimistic the new City Commission will be interested in tackling these kinds of problems that have been ignored for too long.”

The survey wasn’t all good news. Lawrence scored well in the “toxics” category in part because it had relatively few manufacturers. That runs counter to the desire of city economic development officials.

“Obviously, you can have manufacturing that doesn’t pollute,” Dunfield said. “That’s what we want.”

Weinhold agreed.

“From what I’ve been seeing, there’s been ways to do (manufacturing) processes less toxically and with less emissions,” he said. “If you can figure out how to do that, you can live a little better and have a good quality of life while still doing those things.”