Smog Gives County Lungs a Breather--No ’86 Alerts

Air quality in San Diego County improved in 1986 to a point where for the first time in 12 years there was not a single smog alert, according to the annual air quality “report card” released Tuesday by the county Air Pollution Control District.

The improvement was traced by district officials to a combination of factors including favorable weather, the state’s automobile smog check program and tighter emission controls on new cars and industrial polluters.

“Cynics might tend to say maybe this was just a good year with the wind blowing right,” R.J. Somerville, an air pollution control officer, said at a press conference. “. . . (But) it is not just a purely meteorological phenomenon that caused this to happen.”

Somerville compared San Diego County’s air favorably to air quality in Los Angeles. He said the county’s air is about on a par with San Francisco’s but San Diego suffers from worse ozone, a principal component in smog.

A smog alert is issued when ozone levels exceed 200 on the so-called pollution standard index for at least one hour. The district then issues a health advisory for the elderly, children and people with respiratory diseases.

Scientists increasingly suspect that ozone harms not only asthmatics and others with respiratory problems but healthy people with normal lungs. Coupled with heavy exercise, it can reduce lung functioning in a matter of hours by up to 20%.

Other effects include chest pain, coughing, wheezing, lung and nasal congestion, labored breathing, sore throat, nausea and a faster respiratory rate. Medical scientists are concerned about long-term injury from ozone.

According to statistics released by Somerville, the district announced 11 smog alerts in 1978, the year it adopted its current pollution control strategy. That figure went to two in 1981, four in 1985 and none in 1986.

But one-hour average ozone levels in the San Diego air basin this year exceeded the federal clean air standard of 100 on the index on 45 days. In downtown San Diego, such days occurred only twice. But in Alpine, they occurred 27 times.

Alpine has traditionally suffered some of the worst smog in the county because of its location in the foothills. The community lies just below an inversion layer that often traps smog.

Next to Alpine, Oceanside and Del Mar suffered the highest number of excess-ozone days, 10 and 13, respectively. Somerville attributed those relatively high numbers to the fact that northern coastal communities are victimized by “transport smog” from Los Angeles.

Escondido, however, apparently benefited from the year’s weather patterns and avoided its normal quotient of transport smog. Its number of excess-ozone days dropped from 12 in 1985 to two in 1986.

El Cajon and Chula Vista had fewer excess-ozone days than at any time since 1976. Chula Vista had two, down from 12 in 1977; El Cajon three, down from 13 in 1984.

However, Somerville said he does not believe the district will achieve the federally mandated ozone standard by the deadline of December, 1987. He said several other counties are unlikely to meet it too, and it is unclear whether they will be penalized.

“I think we’ll be very close but not make it,” he said.

As for standards for other federally defined “criteria air pollutants”--nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and total suspended particulates--Somerville said those standards were met throughout the San Diego air basin this year.

The eight-hour carbon monoxide standard was exceeded just once. That occurred in downtown San Diego this month.

Somerville said strong onshore winds and high pressure gradients prevented the usual July smog buildup. In addition, he said the high pressure areas that usually carry Los Angeles pollution to the North County in September and October did not develop.

But Somerville said the most significant new pollution “control tactic” in recent years has been the state’s vehicle inspection and maintenance program, which has cut hydrocarbon emissions by 7.3 tons a day and carbon monoxide emissions by 68 tons a day.

Finally, he said the state’s program requiring emission controls on new cars has contributed steadily to improved air quality over the past 20 years, and especially during the past six years.

Similarly, California’s requirements for controls on industrial emissions have reduced pollution in recent years. New sources of emissions are required by law to have what is called the “best available control technology”--producing the lowest achievable pollution level.

“What the whole control program in California at this point is is getting a little more out of something you’re already getting a big chunk out of,” Somerville said, referring to the control tactics, which have been in place now for many years.

The majority of all air pollution comes from automobile emissions. The rest, over which the district has jurisdiction, comes from power generation, industry, small businesses and gasoline transfer and storage.

In San Diego County, the largest industrial polluter is San Diego Gas & Electric Co., which generates 25% of all industrial pollution. The second largest is the Navy, generating 5%; then Kelco and San Diego Pipeline Co., generating 3% each.

Among the principal pollutants, hydrocarbon emissions, which contribute to ozone, come almost equally from cars and industries. Carbon monoxide comes from cars, about 80% of all oxides of nitrogen come from cars, and particulates come largely from industry.

Somerville said further improvements in air quality could come from improved efficiency of auto-emissions controls. He also noted that mass transit and “reduced trip generation” improve air quality.

“It’s going to take a whole bunch of both,” he said.