Smog Patrols to Return to Southland Highways : Heavily Smoking Diesel Buses, Trucks and Cars to Be Main Target of CHP Units Last Seen in ’75

The South Coast Air Quality Management District on Friday ordered a crackdown on heavily smoking diesel buses, trucks and passenger cars, bringing back smog patrols last seen more than a decade ago to cite offenders.

The AQMD will put five specially trained inspectors in the field beginning Monday to watch for smoking diesel buses operated by at least 25 transit districts, school districts and commercial carriers operating in the four-county South Coast Air Basin.

And beginning next month, the California Highway Patrol will ticket drivers of excessively smoking vehicles of all kinds under a contract signed with the district. When the CHP enforcement program hits its peak, the patrol said it expects to issue 200 more citations a day for smoking vehicles. In 1986, the patrol issued 3,800 such tickets.

First Time Since 1975

The new AQMD program represents the first time since 1975 that law enforcement officers and AQMD inspectors have been specifically assigned to emissions patrols.

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

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

CHP officials in Orange County welcomed the new rules and said they anticipate no problems enforcing the law.

“We’ve always tried to cite smoking vehicles--that’s one of my personal peeves,” said Ken Daily, spokesman for the CHP in San Juan Capistrano.

“We are out there around the clock and we have to breathe this (exhaust) all the time. When somebody suggests that we are ignoring it, I get teed. We don’t like it any more than anybody else.”

Camarena said the black-and-white CHP cars will be marked with “Smoke Patrol” signs. “When a vehicle is pulled over, everyone will know why,” Camarena said.

However at the moment, he said, there are far more smoking vehicles on the road than there were in years past because of poor maintenance, improper operation and poor-quality diesel fuel.

Daily said: “Normally it’s a corrective violation. And it’s often nothing more than a leaky oil gasket . . . that’s dripping oil under the exhaust. It’s a matter of these people just going down and putting on a new gasket or tightening something. It’s usually not a major overhaul.”

Diesel buses and trucks have long been a cause of complaints by other motorists and pedestrians. The decision by the AQMD’s governing board is certain to elicit widespread public acceptance.

Motorists caught behind a diesel truck or bus, as well as pedestrians standing at or near bus stops, frequently voice outrage at the assault of the pungent black diesel soot belching from the exhaust pipe. Their exasperation has not been eased by repeated explanations by air pollution regulators that invisible emissions may pose a far greater health threat and are largely responsible for photochemical smog.

The enforcement effort has several goals: to reduce visible vehicle emissions, to reduce citizen complaints about smoking vehicles, to reduce highway hazards from smoking vehicles and to promote awareness of the problem and self-compliance by the public.

Visible Emissions

For engineering reasons, diesel vehicles have never been subject to California’s vehicle inspection and maintenance program, known as Smog Check, which requires owners of gasoline-powered vehicles to comply with emission standards every two years as a condition of renewing their vehicle registration. However, diesels are subject to restraints on visible emissions.

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

The CHP now 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 overtime. Then, beginning on July 1, 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 three CHP offices in Orange County are awaiting directions from the AQMD to determine how many officers will participate in the program.

“The program isn’t completely outlined yet, but we may take one (officer) from each office, and maybe some other areas of the state that have an abundance of officers might relocate them here,” said Gary Alfonzo, spokesman for the Border Division of the CHP, which includes Orange County.

Stake Out Intersections

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

AQMD officials said 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 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, which 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

‘Substantial Health Risk’

Holmes said there is “a substantial health risk” from diesel smoke particles: “They are a delivery system for carcinogenic chemicals into the deep lung where they can do the most damage.”

He said the smaller particles bypass the human body’s natural defenses and penetrate deeper and are of the most concern. Still, he added: “If there’s no smoke, it’s an incremental health improvement. If you don’t see the smoke you can be assured there’s less of the material entering the air.”

Officials of the Orange County Transit District said they have already tried to adhere to the state guidelines, and they expect major changes in the maintenance procedures.

The district has spent more than $400,000 over the past two years replacing the exhaust systems on about half of its fleet of diesel buses and has tightened up on its preventive maintenance program, according to transit spokeswoman Joanne Curren.

“We’ve tried to correct things before they become a problem,” she said. “We welcome the spot checks and, for the most part, feel confident that all of our buses would conform to the state standards.”

The transit district replaced the entire exhaust system on 174 of its 440 operating buses, moving the emissions system from beneath the bus to the roof so exhaust would not mix with dirt and debris on the street, Curren said. The buses that were modified were older ones that had been emitting the most amount of smoke, she said.

Curren said the district also began a preventive maintenance program, so each of the buses in operation are fully inspected every 6,000 miles. Previously, only about 85% of the buses were inspected on schedule, she said.

“While we will never totally reduce smoke emissions from diesels--that is a fact of living with diesel engines--we think we have done the best with our maintenance program to reduce it the maximum amount possible,” she said.

Officials of the California Trucking Assn., a Los Angeles-based trade association composed of 2,500 trucking companies and allied members, also approved of the new program.

“It is law and it has been for some time,” said Allen Saylor, the association’s southern manager. “We don’t really see it as a major problem. Our members spend a lot of money each year on equipment maintenance, and we think everybody should pitch in and do their part to help clean up the environment.”

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.

The RTD operates a fleet of more than 2,375 buses--the largest all-bus fleet in the nation--which drive 110 million miles a year.

Take It Out of Service

In an interview, Davis said he believed that the RTD had a good maintenance program and used low-sulfur diesel fuel. He said if the AQMD or any resident saw a heavily smoking bus, all they had to do was call him and he would take it out of service for maintenance as soon as possible.

The RTD is buying 30 experimental buses powered by cleaner burning methanol fuel that are scheduled for delivery next fall as part of a $1.87-million, two-year demonstration project principally financed by the federal government that originally was to begin in 1985.

The RTD’s diesel buses are inspected and maintained every six weeks, or 6,000 miles, Davis said. But he said that between inspections, problems can develop that will cause a bus to smoke excessively. The principal causes are poor quality fuel and problems with fuel injectors, which can become clogged.

Lenient State Law

Under a lenient state law that limits visible emissions from vehicles, some smoking vehicles would be in compliance.

Vince Pellegrin, the RTD’s equipment engineering supervisor, said determining which smoking vehicles are in violation will be difficult. “The perception of smoke depends on the (visibility) background you have and the angle you look at it. If you’re in the back of the bus and you’re looking at a plume 4 feet long, it’s different (from) looking at the same plume from the side that’s only 6 inches wide,” Pellegrin said.

Times staff writer A. Dahleen Glanton contributed to this story from Orange County.