You can't see it or smell it, but experts warn there's a dangerous amount of chemicals out there polluting our air, leading to premature death and disease.  Michael Waters feels it worse than most.

“The tiny air sacks in your lungs get this particulate matter in them and they can't exchange the carbon monoxide for oxygen.  Then you body panics and then you better have this with you or you will end up in the emergency room or the morgue.”

While Jefferson County has made progress in cleaning up the air, some experts say it's still not healthy or safe.

Environmental attorney Gil Rogers said, “It's only better in the sense you can't see as much of the pollution like you could fifty years ago.”

The metro area has some of the dirtiest air in the U.S.

“Birmingham has the worst air pollution in the south.  It's even worse than Atlanta.  It's the fourth worst in the country.  That surprises a lot of people to hear that,” said Rogers.

So who's to blame?

Statistics from the EPA and environmental groups show Alabama Power is our biggest polluter, with its three coal-fired plants: Miller Steam Plant in Jefferson County, Gaston in Shelby and Gorgas in Walker…spewing tons of pollution into the air.

Experts say it's what you don't see that is so dangerous.  The mercury is harmful to children and developing fetuses.  Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides trigger asthma attacks and contribute to lung and heart disease.

Jenny Dorgan of the Alabama Environmental Council said, "When we can start to make the connection that the lion's share of our pollution problems, of our air pollution problems, are coming from the way that we use energy and the way we get our energy in Alabama, which is 60% from coal, I think people will start to demand cleaner energy sources."

But Alabama Power says coal is here to stay at least for the foreseeable future.

Michael Sznajderman with Alabama Power said, “It's an abundant domestic resource.  We have possibly 250-300 years of coal supply in the U.S.”

And Alabama Power says it's spending more than a billion dollars on technology to reduce its pollution.

"The particular scrubber project will help reduce the SO2 emissions in the atmosphere, and then combined with selective catalytic reduction, we call SCR, combined will actually reduce our mercury emissions, which is unregulated at this time," said Al Moore with Alabama Power.

“Our emissions have come down dramatically and they're going to continue to come down,” said Sznajderman.

But critics complain Alabama Power's parent company Southern Company has lead the fight against tighter regulations, spending big money on lobbying and political contributions to influence policy.

“The problem with the EPA and ADEM typically is first of all they don't have the regulatory bite they need to have.  Secondly they have been weakened substantially over the years.  It's like every one of the regulatory agencies in the U.S., they have been infiltrated by industry,” said plaintiff attorney Robert Palmer.

Congressional Democrats say it won't be business as usual in Washington with the new administration.

“The days of no regulation by the federal government on greenhouse gases emissions, those days are over.  And the days where pollution is just another aspect of doing business in Alabama, those days should have ended long ago and they will end soon enough,” said U.S. Representative Artur Davis.

The EPA will tighten air quality standards again next year, so Jefferson County will likely be out of attainment again, costing us jobs and federal money.