EPA Tells State’s Smoggiest Areas to Begin Added Pollution Controls

Four of California’s smoggiest urban areas, including the South Coast Air Basin, were directed Friday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement additional air pollution regulations because they will fail to meet 1987 federal Clean Air Act standards.

EPA Regional Administrator Judith E. Ayres said the extra efforts are needed to protect public health in the South Coast Basin and Fresno, Sacramento and Ventura counties where half of all Californians reside and where ozone levels exceed the federal standard.

In addition, the South Coast Air Basin--composed of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties--and Fresno County also fail to meet the standard for carbon monoxide, she said.

Fall Out of Compliance

Ayres also indicated that other areas of the state that meet the ozone standard could fall out of compliance next year because of population or industrial growth. The EPA said those areas may also be asked to take additional steps to control air pollution.

“The reasonable extra efforts program is designed to improve air quality. Its goal is increased protection of the public health as it emphasizes the possible rather than the impossible,” Ayres said in a statement from EPA regional headquarters in San Francisco.

Ayres said the efforts will be aimed at further reductions in emissions of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, the two chemicals that unite in sunlight to form ozone, the chief component of s1836017454fuel and paint vapors, while nitrogen oxides are the products of combustion.

Ayres’ announcement was prompted in part by a environmental lawsuit brought against the EPA--since settled out of court--that challenged EPA’s approval of the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s ozone reduction strategies on grounds that they failed to meet the Clean Air Act’s requirements.

A Possible Model

But, EPA officials in San Francisco said the extra efforts program in California could become a model for how EPA will deal with urban areas across the United States that will also fail to meet the December, 1987, ozone standard deadline set by the Clean Air Act.

Since 1980, the number of areas in the United States failing to comply with the ozone standard has dropped by about 15%. But more than a third of all Americans still live in non-attainment areas, the worst being in California, the Northeast, the Texas Gulf Coast and the Chicago area.

Ozone can reduce lung capacity and aggravate respiratory diseases like asthma, even at levels at or near the Clean Air Act standard of .12 parts per million, according to scientific studies. It significantly reduces the yields of some crops, damages some trees in544499813role in the decline of forests in the East. Animal studies indicate that ozone causes structural damage to lungs and their premature aging as well as a weakened ability to resist respiratory infections.

Ayres said public hearings and workshops will be held to solicit public advice on efforts to comply with the Clean Air Act and to suggest extra efforts to improve air quality. Hearings in Los Angeles are tentatively scheduled Nov. 12 and 13.

Mark Abramowitz, who filed the suit against EPA and is project director for the Santa Monica-based Coalition for Clean Air, said Friday: “I hope (the hearings) will be used as a tool for the public to let EPA know that they want to see the strongest measures taken to protect public health.”

Implementation Time Frame

Jim Birakos, deputy executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said it may take as long as five years to fully implement the new air pollution controls that may be proposed. He said others could become effective next year.

However, Birakos said the air quality management district welcomed the extra effort program. “We have a very difficult basin. We will not be meeting the federal standard in 1987 as required. We’ve known that and the EPA’s known that from the very first day, so any extra effort we can make beyond and above what is blueprinted now is of course welcomed,” Birakos said.