Air Board Votes to Ask EPA to Spare 3 Counties From Sanction Threat

The California Air Resources Board voted unanimously Thursday to ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to remove Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties from the threat of sanctions for failing to meet federal standards for nitrogen oxide pollution.

Some officials saw the action as a victory for the three counties over Los Angeles County, which has long insisted that responsibility for air pollution problems belongs to the region.

But sources close to the Air Resources Board said the panel’s vote was mostly symbolic because the South Coast Air Quality Management District must meet several tough conditions before Thursday’s decision can be implemented. The Air Quality Management District includes the four-county region.

The three counties needed state Air Resources Board approval before the Environmental Protection Agency could consider the change. Some critics had charged that EPA approval would unfairly leave Los Angeles County alone to face sanctions and would cause the other counties to lose interest in Los Angeles’ pollution problems.

EPA sanctions, if imposed, could eventually include loss of federal funds for highways and sewage treatment facilities, and also bans on new sources of industrial pollution.

The seven-member Air Resources Board, meeting in Los Angeles, accepted an 11th-hour compromise worked out late Wednesday between the Air Quality Management District and state Air Resources Board staffs.

“This is a pat on the back for our successful efforts in attaining the federal standards,” Orange County Supervisor Harriett Wieder said following the meeting. Wieder is an Air Resources Board member.

The compromise involves redrawing the boundaries of the zone that has not met federal standards and a requirement that the Air Quality Management District, with its member counties, submit a new plan for ensuring compliance with federal nitrogen oxide limits that is acceptable to the Air Resources Board and to the EPA. The four counties are now part of a single zone, although Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties now meet the pollution standard when considered individually.

Such a plan would have to be submitted before the end of the year, according to Air Resources Board spokesman Bill Sessa.

Wieder said the Air Quality Management District staff is confident that nitrogen oxide violations will disappear by 1987, and maybe even as soon as the end of this year, based on current pollution trends.

EPA Considering Division

She said David Howekamp, director of air pollution programs for the EPA’s western region, testified Thursday that his agency is willing to consider splitting the region so that Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties are no longer designated as a “non-attainment area” for nitrogen oxide standards.

That action greatly aided the three counties’ bid to have the boundaries of the area redrawn, Wieder said.

According to Sessa, much of the opposition to Thursday’s decision came from San Diego officials who questioned the enforceability of any plan that might lessen the responsibilities of individual counties.

San Diego County is downwind from the other counties and is concerned that its air quality could suffer, Sessa said.