Smog Patrol Coming Back to L.A.’s Freeways, Streets : Inspectors Out to Get Polluters

The South Coast Air Quality Management District today ordered a crackdown on heavily smoking diesel buses and passenger cars, bringing back the smog patrols of the 1960s to cite offenders on Southland streets and freeways.

The AQMD will put five specially trained inspectors in the field beginning next week to watch for smoking diesel buses operated by at least 25 transit districts, school districts and commercial carriers.

And beginning next month, the AQMD has worked out an arrangement for the California Highway Patrol to again ticket heavily smoking vehicles of all kinds, including passenger cars.

The one-two enforcement punch is part of a broader clean air strategy being implemented by the district, which regulates air pollution levels in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

“We should see fewer and fewer smoking vehicles on the road,” Ed Camarena, AQMD deputy executive officer for operations, told the board.

Camarena said the black-and-white CHP cars will be marked with “Smoke Patrol” signs.

‘Everyone Will Know Why’

“When a vehicle is pulled over, everyone will know why,” Camarena said.

The district and its predecessor agency first launched smog patrols in the 1950s. The patrols stopped in 1975 because law enforcement agencies, who assumed responsibility for the program, had higher priorities.

Currently, the CHP writes about 500 citations daily in Los Angeles County for smoke violations, but ticketing offenders is not the patrol’s highest priority.

Under the AQMD program, the CHP will be paid $75,000 to conduct the enforcement program from April 1 through June 30 in Los Angeles County only. Three CHP officers will be assigned to the program on an overtime basis. Then, beginning on July 1 a total of six to eight CHP officers will range throughout the four-county basin at an estimated cost of $750,000. Negotiations over the exact cost for the expanded enforcement effort are under way between the district and the CHP.

The AQMD inspectors will visit bus maintenance yards and stake out strategic intersections watching for excessively smoking buses.

Will Mail Notices

When they spot a heavily smoking bus, inspectors will jot down its number and send a violation notice directly to the transit district. The buses will not be stopped.

Diesel buses and trucks have long been a cause of complaints and the AQMD’s decision, approved today by the district’s governing board, is certain to elicit widespread public acceptance. But others, including the RTD, think it will not really improve things much and might accomplish little more than harassment.

However, AQMD officials said today that 2% to 8% of urban nonsmoker lung cancer risks in the United States result from visible soot from smoking diesel trucks, buses and passenger cars, based on findings by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

California’s 850,000 heavy-duty diesel trucks and buses produce almost as much nitrogen oxides--one of the chief components of smog--as all 14 million passenger cars. Emissions of particulates, that appear as black smoke spewing from exhaust pipes, nearly equal those from all the cars in the state.

The AQMD’s effort was applauded by John Holmes, chief of the state Air Resources Board’s research division. But the AQMD’s program received a lukewarm reception from the Southern California Rapid Transit District’s director of maintenance, Richard L. Davis.

” . . . I’m not sure what will be accomplished (by the AQMD) other than harassment,” Davis said. But, he said he will support it.