You’ll get another chance to do your part for a Beaumont-Port Arthur Ozone Action Day.

This area encountered one Wednesday, for these key weather ingredients were present in the area: clear skies, a warm day, low wind speeds. Think we get some of those in Southeast Texas?

Here’s the secret behind OADs: Bob Dickinson, director of transportation and environmental resources for the South East Texas Regional Planning Commission, says those action days were created to offset air pollution in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. For the planning commission, that includes Jefferson, Hardin and Orange counties.

Air pollution locally is the product of many things: auto paint shops; industry; heavy traffic; even pine trees, under some conditions, Dickinson says.

Beaumont-Port Arthur has all of those factors present but the idea behind action days is that ordinary people can make a difference. Dickinson said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has a long list of proposed actions you might try. These include combining your vehicle trips into one errand run, not using your gas mower until evening, changing your air and oil filters in your vehicles, turning off lights that aren’t needed, carpooling.

“There are actions you can do to save time, money and reduce those things that contribute to air pollution,” he said.

Air pollution is an ever-present challenge here, but we don’t expect our South East Texas neighbors to become tree-huggers overnight. Nonetheless, over the past two decades, our region has moved the needle some in meeting the ozone challenge. Some of that might have been due to individual actions.

You should know the dangers of ground-level ozone, which is what we Texans face. It poses the greatest threat in areas with traffic, power plants, industrial boilers, refineries and chemical plants. Sounds like us. Its effects on people and environments can be substantial, particularly on those with asthma, children and outdoor workers.

Children are more at risk because they play outdoors when the risk is greatest. And don’t we always encourage the kids to play outdoors?

The risks are measured by an air quality index that tells us — by the numbers — how dangerous things are. For example, we checked the AQI for Beaumont-Port Arthur on Wednesday and it measured 140; scores between 100 and 150 are toughest on people with lung disease, older adults and children.

We checked the AQI again on Thursday night: 114.

Ozone action days are triggered when TCEQ meteorologists project the presence of sunny days, high temperatures and low wind speeds. If we can’t take every suggested personal action to offset ground ozone, we ought to try a few.

Avoid drive-through window lines. Don’t use charcoal lighter fluid. They are small steps, but they represent you doing your part.

Not everyone will notice. But you’ll know.