President Donald Trump’s massive fireworks show set for the July 4 holiday is likely to cause “hazardous” air quality conditions in the nation’s capitol, the National Park Service found in a draft analysis viewed by POLITICO.
Trump has boasted that the historic event will set records for a fireworks show, unleashing more than 850,000 pyrotechnics over downtown Washington and the Potomac River to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday. That’s a hundredfold increase during the 35-minute program from the city’s normal Independence Day display.
In its “worst-case” scenario, the National Park Service estimated the fireworks would create more than 2,000 micrograms of fine particulate matter — PM2.5 — per cubic meter on the National Mall.
Under that outlook, which includes analysis of the kind of low-wind conditions currently expected as the nation’s capital swelters under a heat wave, the smoke may become trapped over the National Mall and “reach extreme hazardous levels,” the park service said. The Washington Post first reported on the agency’s analysis.
