Clean Air by 2007? Snags Arise in Southland’s Goals

The South Coast Air Quality Management District’s vaunted goal of cleaning up the nation’s most intractable smog basin within 20 years may be far more difficult to achieve than thought only a few months ago.

Air quality officials until recently had calculated that up to 250 tons of ozone-causing hydrocarbons could be spewed into the air and still meet the federal Clean Air Act standard by the year 2007. But new, state-of-the-art computer analyses have concluded that only 113 tons can be allowed.

Hydrocarbons, typified by fumes from fuels, solvents and paints, are a key ingredient of photochemical smog.

Even with a vast array of stringent new air pollution controls, technological innovations and life style changes envisioned by the AQMD over the next 20 years and unveiled in detail Thursday at a public hearing, the eastern San Gabriel Valley and western San Bernardino Valley would fail to meet the federal ozone standard, the AQMD acknowledged. The rest of the basin--which consists of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties--would be in compliance with the ozone standard.

But under federal law, an entire basin is considered in violation if the ozone standard is exceeded in any area of the basin.

Planning officials told The Times that they have no idea where to turn for the additional reductions needed. They are hoping that advanced technology and other future developments that the computer model could not possibly predict will do the job. They added that the smog district will be making “mid-course corrections” throughout the next 20 years to reach the goal.

As recently as last January, AQMD officials were predicting that the plan would bring all areas of the basin into compliance with the ozone standard by the year 2007. Only in the last few months did the computer findings point to the unexpected problem.

“Suddenly, what you’re saying is when we started the game the target was at the end of the football field. That target just moved five football fields from us,” Pat Nemeth, director of environmental planning for the Southern California Assn. of Governments, said in an interview.

The development comes at a critical juncture when the AQMD is attempting to unite competing environmental and economic interests behind its far-reaching air quality goals.

Some officials worry that the computer model’s ozone findings--which strongly suggest the need for even tougher controls than those now contemplated--could further complicate efforts to win broad-based support for the plan.

“It is clear the path to clean air presents a formidable challenge to all,” AQMD Executive Officer James M. Lents told an estimated 300 people Thursday during a public meeting in the City of Industry to outline the plan. But he urged them not to lose sight of the goal.

“If we are of a nature to retreat and run up a white flag at the first sounds of battle then the prospects for our citizens for clean air are dim,” Lents declared.

Likened to Kennedy Plea

Lents compared the 20-year goal to achieve clean air with President John F. Kennedy’s exhortation in May, 1961, to put a man on the moon within a decade. Lents said much was known about space travel then. But, Lents reminded the audience, much was unknown and there was uncertainty exactly how the lunar mission would be accomplished.

“We have set an equally challenging goal. We, too, know much . . . and have much to learn. (But) we should not waver from our 20-year goal,” Lents said.

If the proposals are enforced, the AQMD predicted that the clean air standard for nitrogen dioxide would be met by the end of 1996. One year later, carbon monoxide levels would be brought within federal and state standards. By the end of the year 2007, ozone concentrations would comply with federal standards, except in the eastern San Gabriel Valley and western San Bernardino Valley.

Aside from the fact that the ozone standard may not be met within 20 years, there is concern among the district’s supporters that some of the technological fixes the AQMD is relying upon may not deliver promised gains on air pollution.

C. Freeman Allen, a national director of the Sierra Club, told the forum, “This plan is an ambitious one, but it’s not enough.” He said predictions of air quality gains in the past have sometimes been overly optimistic.

Guarantees Lacking

In addition, AQMD officials have conceded there is no effective means of guaranteeing that local governments will help the cause, such as by taking air quality into account and planning new residential subdivisions closer to job sites to reduce commuting.

“Frankly, that’s going to be our toughest nut to crack,” said Carolyn Green, a deputy AQMD executive officer.

In addition, opposition is expected to increase as the district moves to translate its clean air rhetoric into specific air pollution control strategies.

The basic assumptions of the AQMD’s strategy--called the “Path to Clean Air,” are being increasingly challenged by business interests that six months ago kept their silence as Lents outlined his vision of blue skies and healthy people.

“There’s going to have to be some conclusion whether clean air is an overriding and compelling regional good that must be accomplished regardless of expense,” said Ray Remy, president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. “If the answer to that is yes, then it is difficult to disagree with the ‘Path to Clean Air.’

“If the answer is no, that clean air has to be in the marketplace of competing interests and different demands, then I think the basic premise of the ‘Path to Clean Air’ has problems,” Remy said.

Mark Abramowitz of the Coalition for Clean Air predicted that business interests are “going to fight it tooth and nail. There’s a great deal of opinion that we can never have clean air in this basin. I think that this plan demonstrates that if we want it we can have it.”

The approaches outlined Thursday will form the basis of a formal 20-year Air Quality Management Plan scheduled to be adopted next November. That plan in turn will guide the development of specific rules to bring the air basin into compliance with state and federal clean air standards for ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide--pollutants that contribute to the formation of smog and threaten human health.

Major new air pollution controls, from regulating traffic and urban growth to technological breakthroughs, and the conversion of passenger vehicles to electricity and cleaner burning fuels are contemplated.

Three-Phase Approach

The controls would be implemented in three phases. The first phase, known as Tier I, would require the adoption of 123 new regulations by 1993 involving known control technologies and management practices. Tier II measures would be made through 1998 and involve advanced technology that would include the conversion of 40% of cars, 70% of trucks and all diesel buses to cleaner fuels. Tier III would cover as yet unknown technological breakthroughs between 1998 and 2007.

While ozone levels have been cut in half during the last 30 years, they are still often three times higher than the federal clean air standard permits. Last year, the ozone standard was exceeded at all 28 locations monitored in the basin.

Currently, the air basin is the only one in the United States that does not meet the nitrogen dioxide standard. Carbon monoxide levels are twice as high as the federal standard in Los Angeles and Orange counties, and microscopic particulate matter, which can penetrate the human body’s defenses and lodge deep in the lung and cause respiratory disease, is almost two times higher than standards permit. The state’s visibility standard was exceeded 242 days during 1987 in the South Coast Air Basin.

WAYS TO MAKE THE AIR CLEANER

These are some of the air pollution controls suggested Thursday to meet clean air standards in the four-county South Coast Air Basin:

* Conversion of diesel-powered transit buses to cleaner burning methanol or electricity.

* Rerouting and rescheduling of trucks during non-peak hours.

* Additional controls on emissions of smog-producing chemicals from dry cleaners.

* Ride sharing, van pools and diamond (express) lanes.

* Conversion of 40% of all passenger vehicles to cleaner burning fuels within 10 years.

* Emission standards on new pleasure boat engines.

* Emission reductions from products such as paint, solvents, film coatings.

* Emission controls on breweries, large commercial bakeries and livestock wastes.

* New controls on emissions of oxides of nitrogen from a wide variety of sources, including industrial boilers, refinery heaters, electric power generation boilers.

* Local governments would be asked to consider ordinances to encourage work at home via computers, the use of solar panels on residential water heaters.

* Governments also would be asked to manage growth differently to reduce the number of commuting miles driven by planning for residential and commercial development within closer proximities.