Originally Posted by
trueblu
...crunching the numbers (someone else did, but I vagely trust it), even breathing the air the last 24hrs was no 'worse' than smoking 3-5 cigarettes
not sure if this is the article you are referring to, but
this blog post by a doctor calculated that breathing for a full day in an AQI500 day is equal to about 75% of a cigarette. However he only accounts for the particulates; I don't think he took into account effects of nicotine in cigarettes and other toxic contaminants in the coal ash.