Could celebrating America’s independence with fireworks soon be a thing of the past?

The tradition began after Thomas Jefferson wrote to his wife on the eve of what became known as the first Independence Day:

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to G-d Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

But fast-forward to 2015 and a time when the federal bureaucracy has grown so large, it is now analyzing the environmental impact of sparklers and cherry bombs.

“When people think of air pollution, they think of other kinds of things—smoke stacks, automobile exhaust pipes, construction sites,” says study author Dian J. Seidel, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “I don’t think most people think of fireworks.”

Seidel’s study, titled “Effects of Independence Day fireworks on atmospheric concentrations of fine particulate matter in the United States,” was published in the August 2015 edition of “Atmospheric Environment.”

The level of particulate matter, such as soot and smoke, “increased by 42% on average across the U.S. on the Fourth of July, according to the study,” Time magazine reports.

According to data from 315 locations across the U.S., air quality was the worst between 9 and 10 p.m. — the traditional time for some 14,000 fireworks shows, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association.

Additionally, 10 of those sites “met a threshold deemed unsafe by the Environmental Protection Agency when sustained for a prolonged period of time.”

The study doesn’t offer any potential remedies, but given the current band of rule-happy regulators in Washington, D.C., it’s only a matter of time before the edicts are a-flying.

After all, if they can do it for school lunches, they can do it for fireworks.

As for the study’s author, Dian Seidel, she won’t be boycotting the celebration of America.

“Yes, I will be watching,” she tells the magazine, “from a safe distance and upwind.”