County to Join Battle Over U.S. Air Standard

The Orange County Board of Supervisors voted Wednesday to join Riverside and San Bernardino counties in battling state and Los Angeles County officials over Southern California’s failure to meet a federal clean air standard.

Los Angeles County and the state Air Resources Board have strongly opposed a bid by the three other counties to force Los Angeles County alone to face federal sanctions for not meeting the standard for nitrogen oxide pollutants, about 65% of which come from automobiles.

An 11th-hour compromise between the three counties and the state ARB staff late Wednesday was scheduled to be presented to ARB members at their meeting in Los Angeles today, potentially heading off a confrontation.

The compromise, according to state and county officials, involves redrawing the boundaries of the zone that has not met federal standards. The four-county region as a whole does not meet federal nitrogen oxide standards. But considered separately, the standards have been met in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties would be removed from the zone in exchange for their promise not to relax their anti-pollution efforts and to allow strict monitoring of pollutants to ensure compliance. Earlier Wednesday, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted to request the change in boundaries.

Thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in federal highway and sewage treatment grants would be eliminated if the federal Environmental Protection Agency follows through on threats to impose sanctions on the region for failing to meet the standard.

The EPA has backed off from earlier threats to impose sanctions for the other violations in the region, but not for nitrogen oxide.

Sanctions Threatened

“The EPA gave notice that it was considering such sanctions after it was surprised to learn that the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s plan for dealing with nitrogen oxides failed to achieve its goals, something that had never been anticipated by anyone,” state ARB spokesman Bill Sessa said Wednesday.

“The EPA knows that Southern California can’t meet federal deadlines for many air pollutants because of the special conditions here, but it was counting on the region meeting the nitrogen oxide standard when it backed off of the earlier threats,” Sessa said.

If the EPA decides to seek sanctions, enforcement could be months or years away because of the lengthy administrative procedures involved, Sessa said.

Supervisor Harriett Wieder sought the board action, arguing that Orange County has met or exceeded the federal nitrogen oxide standard since 1977 and contributes to the regional problem “less than 1% of the time.”

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has supported the requests from Orange, Riverside and San Bernadino counties. Wieder and Supervisor Bruce Nestande hold seats on the district board, and Wieder also sits on the state Air Resources Board.

ARB spokesman Sessa said, “The issue comes down to this: If San Bernardino County, which is interested in heavy industrial development, allows more nitrogen oxide emissions, then the pollution problem will move to Palm Springs, or at least expand over a greater area.

“We believe in the regional approach in dealing with this pollutant.”

Wieder disagreed, saying that close monitoring of Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino “should take care of the ARB’s fears.”

“We believe in the regional approach, but that end of the region (Los Angeles County) is not holding up its end of the bargain,” Wieder said.

Nestande told fellow supervisors Wednesday that Los Angeles County strongly opposes any change because officials there “feel that we would be less concerned about their problems, and they want to keep the pressure on to continuously clamp down on the smog producers.”