Court Orders EPA to Develop Plan to Clean Air in Basin

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was ordered Monday to draft a plan for cleaning up the air in the South Coast Air Basin, a move that an EPA official said could trigger stronger controls on auto emissions and “life style changes” aimed at cutting back the number of commuters on Southland freeways.

U.S. District Judge Harry Hupp did not specify how long the agency will have to draft the cleanup plan. The EPA earlier had rejected the latest official regional smog plan, approved in 1982, which was projected to bring air quality into compliance with federal air standards in 20 years.

Hupp’s order had been expected after the EPA’s acknowledgement in July that it is required by federal law to step in and take over smog control enforcement in the South Coast Air Basin after the district failed to comply with a December, 1987, deadline for meeting ozone and carbon monoxide health standards. The basin includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Deadlines Yet to Be Set

How quickly the court will direct the EPA to act could be important, with negotiations under way in Congress over amendments to the federal Clean Air Act. EPA officials, who asked not to be quoted by name, said they are hoping Congress will act to extend compliance deadlines before the EPA is forced to impose potentially Draconian restrictions on the South Coast Air Basin.

In an interview last week, EPA administrator Lee M. Thomas said he believes the agency is legally required to draft a plan that would filter out the most dangerous smog within five years--a deadline that local officials predicted would require gas rationing or other severe limits on automobile traffic.

“I think 20 years is by far the more realistic time frame, and even with that, it will require tremendous change on everybody’s part, and even new technology to accomplish it,” Thomas told The Times. But he added: “The law won’t let me go beyond five years.”

Mark Abramowitz, a spokesman for the Coalition for Clean Air, which successfully petitioned with the Sierra Club for the court order, said the group would “fight tooth and nail” against any plan that envisions compliance within five years. Such a plan would have to contain stringent control measures so unpopular that it would be doomed to failure, he said.

“We want attainment as soon as possible, but EPA should not seek attainment by dates that are clearly inconsistent with reality,” Abramowitz said. “We’re looking for 12 to 15 years.”

Despite controls on industrial polluters, a switch-over to unleaded gasoline, vehicle emissions standards and other measures, the South Coast basin still has the worst air in the country, failing to meet federal health standards for four of six major pollutants.

Maximum ozone concentrations occasionally reach three times the federal standard; carbon monoxide and fine particulates reach maximum levels of twice the health standard; and Los Angeles remains the only region in the country that still fails to meet nitrogen dioxide standards.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District’s draft plan now under review, like the 1982 plan, proposes compliance with federal ozone and carbon monoxide standards within 20 years, with interim cleanup goals as early as 2000.

The plan calls for adoption of more than 120 new smog regulations over the next five years and conversion within 20 years of 40% of all passenger vehicles and 70% of all freight vehicles to clean fuels such as methanol or electricity.

“We believe that’s a very aggressive program, which accommodates the growth in population and jobs that are forecast for this area,” said AQMD spokesman Tom Eichhorn.

Eichhorn said district officials hope the EPA will build on the district’s plan to formulate a plan of its own, but he said discussions in Congress about extending the federal cleanup deadline and an impending change in administrations make it impossible to predict what an EPA cleanup plan would require.

Holding to a five-year deadline for meeting federal air standards could involve gas rationing and “other things that would severely limit the amount of driving in the basin,” he said.

Al Zimsky, public affairs director for the EPA in San Francisco, said the agency is not committed to a five-year deadline but would review compliance goals anywhere between five years and 20 years.

“What the federal government can do is a lot more stringent (than what the AQMD has done),” he said. “We would look at possible changes in life style, much stronger types of restrictions on certain polluters, aspects of control that may be a little stronger than the local agency has suggested up to now.”

Gas rationing, ordinances restricting the number of days commuters can drive and electrified fleets are all options, “none of which really have been selected but which certainly are up for discussion,” Zimsky said.

Abramowitz said the EPA could easily impose emissions limits on interstate truck traffic, strengthen the vehicle smog check program and adopt measures to mitigate the air pollution impacts of new development in the region, all of which could speed up the timetable for cleaning up smog in the basin.

EPA officials have said they favor amendments to extend the 1987 deadline for complying with federal health standards for those regions, like the South Coast basin, that have attempted to clean up their air but that have found immediate compliance impossible.

The judge in his order Monday left open the question of how quickly the EPA must prepare a smog plan. The plaintiffs in the case said they will ask the judge to require the plan to be drafted within six months, but the agency has said it is entitled to at least 14 months to develop the plan.

A status conference has been scheduled for Nov. 21 in the event that the parties cannot reach agreement before then.

Judge Hupp also granted motions by the AQMD, the Southern California Assn. of Governments and Southern California Edison to join the case, but he cautioned that he would not be likely to become involved in specifics of what the cleanup plan will entail, as some of the intervenors had suggested.

“Plaintiffs in intervention should know that this court is of the tentative opinion that directing EPA as to what to consider, or what action to take with respect to the state of California or its local agencies, is beyond the scope of this action and, probably, outside the jurisdiction of this court,” the judge wrote.

Times staff writer Larry B. Stammer contributed to this article.