Albuquerque Facing U.S. Crackdown on Air Pollution

On a clear day--and most of them are--a vast Southwestern panorama can be seen from the 11th floor of City Hall.

From the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the north to the Sandias in the east, the Rio Grande Valley stretches in earthen reds and browns to horizons 60 miles distant.

Against such a background, Albuquerque seems an unlikely place for a crackdown by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But a cloud hangs over this city of 390,000. Carbon monoxide levels exceed federal standards, and the city is precariously close to violating federal ozone standards for the first time. On many mornings, a haze--known here as the “brown cloud”--drifts silently over the city like a harbinger of things to come.

Refuses EPA Order

In the face of mounting air quality problems, however, Albuquerque has refused to obey an EPA order to implement a mandatory vehicle inspection and maintenance program, similar to California’s Smog Check program, which is intended to reduce tailpipe emissions.

The EPA, in turn, has imposed a wide range of economic sanctions against the city, including a construction ban on major new sources of pollution, and limits on federal highway and clean-air funds. Within the next 30 days the EPA said it may move to limit federal sewer funds as well. If that doesn’t work, EPA Region 6 Administrator Robert E. Layton Jr. said he may usurp local authority and impose a federally run vehicle inspection and maintenance program on the city.

Albuquerque’s experience in resisting the law of the land is instructive because the EPA is scheduled to announce plans Tuesday to impose construction bans in 14 major urban areas throughout the nation. Those areas will not meet the federal Clean Air Act’s standards by the Dec. 31 deadline.

Among the 14 regions are Fresno, Kern, Sacramento and Ventura counties, and the South Coast Air Basin, which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

For the moment, however, Albuquerque stands alone among U.S. cities in facing the full panoply of federal Clean Air Act sanctions. It will not only fail to meet the carbon monoxide standard but it also does not have a vehicle inspection program.

But if developments here are any guide, the effects of the sanctions can be expected to fall far short of the tough talk from Washington.

In the words of Albuquerque Mayor Ken Schultz, a leading opponent of a mandatory inspection program: “When you say they’ve thrown the book at us, let’s say they’ve thrown every threat in the book at us. They have not been successful thus far.”

For environmental activists the effect--or lack of effect--of the Albuquerque sanctions has disturbing implications for clean air goals throughout the United States.

‘Bunch of Arm-Waving’

“Those who really know what it’s all about are not concerned” about the sanctions, Los Angeles clean air activist Mark Abramowitz said. “All the EPA is doing amounts to a bunch of arm-waving to try to meet the letter of the law without addressing the critical issue (to) make sure the air gets cleaned up.”

The construction ban would apply only to major new sources of pollution, such as a large trash incinerator or oil refinery that would spew out more than 100 tons of pollutants per year.

Had that ban been in effect from 1984 through 1986, it would have blocked less than half of 1% of all construction projects in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area, according to California Air Resources Board estimates.

And despite federal highway sanctions in Southern California between 1979 and 1982, the federal government approved plans for the $1.8-billion, 17-mile Century Freeway.

The penalties have not “proven to be a significant threat to industry,” David Jesson, Southern California air program manager for the EPA, said.

“When we discussed more recently the ban with Kern County oil companies, they were not in the least disturbed by the prospect of a construction ban. . . . I suspect it’s more of a political earthquake, if it is going to have any magnitude at all,” Jesson said. “But the opportunities to escape the ban are so significant that unless the ban lasted for many years there would be no major inconvenience to industry.”

Even EPA Regional Administrator Layton admitted that the effects of the sanctions in Albuquerque have been slight. “I think the penalties are minimal, very frankly,” he said.

Indeed, federal highway dollars have continued to flow into the city’s coffers virtually unimpeded over the last three years, due in large part to exemptions in the Clean Air Act sanctions that make allowances for highway projects that improve safety or benefit air quality by speeding the flow of traffic.

For the last two years, the city has received $2 million per year in federal funds for local street improvements. In addition, interstate freeway projects in the metropolitan Albuquerque area were allocated $20 million two years ago, $28 million last year and $31 million in the current year. The highway funds are distributed by the Federal Highway Administration, which some city officials said has been “a little bit lenient” in applying Clean Air Act sanctions.

No Construction Halt

The construction ban has not stopped the nailing of a single 2-by-4.

Because of accounting procedures, the loss of federal funds to help operate the city’s air pollution program during the last two years was only slightly more than half the $300,000 announced by the EPA, and the city reports that it has expanded the program by 5% during the last three years.

There is some concern, however, about how long the city can stave off the effect of sanctions by qualifying for exceptions to the rules.

“I think the EPA is saying they cannot let this continue. They cannot let Albuquerque continue to thumb its nose at them, and that’s sort of what we’ve done up to this point,” City Councilor Thomas Hoover said.

Layton warned, “I think the impact is probably going to be felt in the foreseeable future.”

Mayor Remains Adamant

But Mayor Schultz remains adamantly opposed to a mandatory vehicle emissions and inspection program, and has won New Mexico Gov. Garrey E. Carruthers to his cause.

In place of a mandatory program, Schultz has proposed what he calls a “comprehensive environmental program,” which includes a voluntary vehicle inspection program as well as programs to protect groundwater from toxic contamination and efforts to deal with the “brown cloud” by reducing road dust and voluntary controls on fireplaces and wood-burning stoves.

“There’s nobody in this city that wants dirty air,” said Schultz, a former member of the City Council and a new car dealer. “There’s nobody in this city that wants the brown cloud. Nobody in this city wants dirty water.”

The city had a short-lived and, by all accounts, poorly enforced vehicle inspection program until the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled in 1984 that the city’s method of financing the year-old program through motor vehicle fees was illegal.

Tax Hike Defeated

Then in November, 1986, voters defeated a controversial ballot measure proposed by Mayor Schultz and backed by the City Council to raise gasoline taxes 2 cents a gallon to pay for a new mandatory inspection and maintenance program as well as other environmental programs.

Some have blamed the mayor for causing the defeat by asking for 2 cents a gallon to finance a broader environmental program when a vehicle inspection program could have been financed with a penny or less. Schultz denies the claim, but the governor has ordered a public opinion poll to find out what the voters will buy.

Meanwhile, the mayor continues to push for a voluntary program and shows no sign of relenting. The mayor said he is not convinced that a mandatory inspection and maintenance program would make a substantial contribution to lower carbon monoxide levels, which last year exceeded the federal standard 26 times.

Vehicle emissions have been reduced an average of 11% in California since its Smog Check program took effect in 1984. Next to auto smog control devices and California air quality standards, Jesson of the EPA said, the Smog Check program is “the single biggest contributor to motor vehicle emission reductions.”

Brown Cloud, Leaking Tanks

Still, opponents in Albuquerque say, the city has more serious environmental problems than carbon monoxide violations, which are largely limited to the winter months and present only in a few “hot spots” such as the bustling Uptown district of the city. Of greater concern, they say, are the brown cloud and leaking underground tanks that threaten water supplies.

Whatever the merits of acting on the wider environmental issues, however, there is widespread feeling among those on both sides of the mandatory inspection controversy that tougher federal sanctions would have forced the city into a mandatory program much sooner.

“I think if the sanctions had been more severe that we might have gotten to the point where people begin to think we ought to do something,” Hoover said.

Terri L. Maisel, executive vice president of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, observed: “I think that if the sanctions had bite, we would be moving much more aggressively toward a solution to the problem. No doubt about that.”