Wayne T. Price

FLORIDA TODAY

Here is something that might take your breath away — Brevard County has some of the cleanest air in the United States.

That's according to Honeywell AirGenius Air Cleaner's second annual AirGenius Awards.

The company said the rankings were based on evaluations from scientists from Environmental Health & Engineering, a global consulting firm. EH&E looked at criteria such as pollen counts, pollution and access to parks.

Brevard ranked third, trailing Cape Coral (No. 2) and San Francisco (No. 1).

Brevard and Cape Coral were among four Florida cities to make the top 10 list. Lakeland came in at No. 8 while Sarasota was No. 9.

The rankings were released Wednesday.

"For the second consecutive year analyzing regional air quality, we found that cities known for heavy traffic or manufacturing remain at the bottom of the list," Ted Myatt, a scientist with EH&E, said in statement.

"For asthma and allergy sufferers – and even young children, the elderly, or those with compromised immune systems – air quality can make a significant impact on day-to-day life indoors and outside."

You don't have to brag about the Space Coast's air quality to Bill Thomas, a broker associate at Trafford Realty in Cocoa, who moved to Brevard from the Los Angeles area in 2004.

While the air quality vastly improved in that city from when he arrived in 1978 to when he left, Thomas said there was still a noticeable late-afternoon smog permeating the Los Angeles basin.

"Here we have clean air, clean water and 72 miles of coastline," Thomas said. "It's a great selling point."

Honeywell manufactures numerous products involving air quality, such as air purifiers and heaters humidifiers.

Data on particulate matter concentrations, ozone concentrations, pollen counts, information on public smoking laws, access to parks, and "green" and "clean" city rankings for the 100 most populated U.S. cities were used in this assessment.

For each city, a score was calculated based on the data collected and weighted by the judgment of environmental health researchers. Once each city was scored, an overall ranking of air quality was determined.

For the air quality rankings, a ranking of 1 corresponds to the city with the best air quality while a ranking of 100 corresponds to the city with the worst air quality.

Ranked at the bottom: Pittsburgh.

Top 10 cleanest air in the U.S.:

Honeywell's AirGenius top 10 U.S. areas with the cleanest air:

1. San Francisco, Calif.

2. Cape Coral

3. Brevard

4. Austin, Texas

5. Boston, Mass.

6. Tucson, Ariz.

7. San Jose, Calif.

8. Lakeland

9. Sarasota

10. Denver, Colo.

Contact Price at 321-242-3658 or wprice@floridatoday.com.