Ozone levels in North Texas have steadily improved in the last 20 years, yet they’ve still exceeded federal standards. As a result, the Dallas-Fort Worth area today is one of the top 25 most ozone-polluted metro areas in the country.

That’s why an air quality improvement plan being drawn up by the North Central Texas Council of Governments is such an important endeavor.

Funded by a $1 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the plan aims to recommend ways regional governments can work together to reduce the unhealthy levels of ozone and other pollutants in North Texas air. If the plan is aggressive enough, the council could receive a slice of a $4.6 billion pie the EPA plans to dole out nationwide to help implement clean air strategies.

It’s worth recalling why we should all care about any of this. Breathing ozone-polluted air can make good lungs bad and bad ones worse. It can cause a host of respiratory problems, aggravate existing ones and is especially bad for children and the elderly. The risks of these health problems are particularly high on the kind of hot, sunny days common to North Texas.

The Dallas-Fort Worth area meets federal standards for all pollutants regulated by the EPA except ozone. But the council of government wants to “create a roadmap for the region to improve air quality, protect public health, and reduce impacts of extreme weather events” by reducing not just ozone but also a long list of other pollutants.

It expects to have its strategy finalized by March 1 and is holding a series of public hearings seeking feedback on its draft. That document proposes hundreds of emission reducing measures, many of them centered on planes, trains and automobiles.

They include the usual suggestions of reducing the number of old diesel trucks on the road, promoting less idling of cars, and adding local rebates for consumers to switch to electric vehicles, for example.

Some of the strategies are more unusual, such as installing cool roofs on government or commercial buildings by either painting them white or planting vegetation on them. Others are already being tackled by some cities, such as establishing more parks and green spaces and planting trees known for large carbon storage capacity.

Homeowners can help the cause by doing more than switching to LED lightbulbs. They can band together to negotiate lower rates for renewable energy sources, and local governments can develop weatherization assistance programs for residents, the draft suggests. Such programs would help homeowners make their houses more energy efficient by installing better insulation or updating heating and cooling systems.

No one strategy will improve the region’s ozone pollution. But hundreds of them implemented together for a sustained period surely could. We applaud the council of governments for its work in coordinating the local efforts to make our air cleaner and safer, and we hope the EPA sends some of its federal grant money this way.

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