It was after joining the Cabarrus Sustainability Council that pharmacist Whit Moose became aware of the serious air quality problem in Cabarrus and Rowan counties.

“We’ve learned some very eye-opening things from the different presenters that have come in,” he says. “We just didn’t realize that things aren’t as crystal clear and clean around here as we’d like to think that they are.”

The American Lung Association has ranked the Charlotte-Gastonia-Salisbury metropolitan area — which includes Cabarrus County — as the 10th worst area in the United States for ozone pollution.

When the Cabarrus Sustainability Council decided on its Clean Air Initiative as this year’s annual project, Moose posted state-funded no idling signs – supplied by the Center for the Environment at Catawba College – at the pharmacy in downtown Mount Pleasant — on the same location that his great-grandfather, Archibald Walter “A.W.” Moose, started the family business in 1882.

When he put up the no idling signs at the Mount Pleasant location, Moose says he announced it on the pharmacy’s Facebook page on Dec. 11. The posting said, “Moose Pharmacy supports Cabarrus County’s Clean Air Initiative by placing ‘No Idling’ signs on the side of the building. Remember the ‘10 Second Rule’  – if you need to idle longer than 10 seconds, turn your engine off!”

The signs address both the money-saving benefits and health benefits of no idling. “We felt like that message was pretty clear,” Moose says. “Of course, the money-saving aspect is what grabs people’s attention and gets them really conscious of what they are doing.

“ I don’t think people are aware that there is an air quality issue for one thing,” he says,  “so it’s probably more of ‘it’s the right thing to do and a way to save money’  than ‘we’ve got problems that we need to address with our air quality.’ ”

Moose says he and his brother also plan to post no idling signs at the Salisbury and Kannapolis pharmacies. They share parking lots at the Concord and Midland locations and will talk with the other businesses before putting up signs there.

*******

Idling Facts

    * More than 10 seconds of idling can use more fuel than turning off the engine and restarting it.
    * Excessive idling can be hard on your engine.
    * Best way to warm a vehicle up is to drive it.
    * It only takes 30 seconds of idling on winter days to warm a fuel-injected engine. Modern diesel engines need less than three minutes, and that can be achieved by driving slowly.
***

The Center for the Environment at Catawba College was founded in 1996 to provide education and outreach centered on prevalent environmental challenges and to foster community-oriented sustainable solutions that can serve as a model for programs throughout the country.