Agencies Taken to Task Over Air Quality
The Orange County Board of Supervisors strongly supports the goal of clean air for the Southern California region. As board chairman and its representative to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, I wish to underscore our commitment to clean air and the development of a workable plan to achieve clean air in Southern California.
The Board of Supervisors’ commitment to clean air is reflected in our recent adoption of an air quality component to the county’s General Plan.
As for the AQMD’s draft Air Quality Management Plan, the county’s technical staff was given only 45 days to analyze and comment upon the plan and supporting documents that stacked up nearly 3 feet high. The district itself admits the plan was 6 years in the making. For a plan that took 6 years to develop, I believe it is only reasonable to allow local jurisdictions that must help implement the plan an adequate amount of time to study it.
Additionally, Orange County’s major concern with the draft Air Quality Management Plan is that it does not meet its stated goals because the tables presented in the plan indicate that federal and state air quality standards will not be met. That could result in the imposition of the very sanctions against Southern California the AQMD says it is seeking to avoid by adoption of this plan. Another major concern of Orange County is that the plan is being developed unilaterally. A more constructive approach would be to involve local government and the private sector meaningfully throughout the plan’s development. Such a process was followed successfully in both the 1979 and 1982 updates of the district’s past plan. This is the needed “bottoms up” approach.
These problems could be worked out if the AQMD worked together with those of us in local government. I intend to ask the district to correct this problem by allowing more time for comment and meaningfully involving those of us who will be called upon to carry out the measures in this plan.
HARRIETT M. WIEDER
Chairman of the Board
Supervisors
More to Read
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
