Panel Tells Burbank to Clean Air Despite Cost

Despite a price tag that may rise above $70 million over the next 20 years, the city of Burbank must start taking steps to clean up its badly polluted air, pollution officials said Tuesday.

“Clean air is not cheap but neither is the health of citizens,” Carolyn Green, deputy executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, told the Burbank City Council in a special presentation on the city’s status as one of the state’s three worst areas for air pollution.

Green said the city should begin taking steps to mitigate the effects of development, improve traffic and reduce emissions from industries.

City officials have estimated that outfitting power plants around Burbank to comply with the air quality district’s suggested draft plan for the city will cost about $70 million. “That could bankrupt our city,” Mayor Al F. Dossin said.

Green said the city may be able to receive tax financing or government assistance. She also agreed with city officials who said they wanted to look at other alternatives for reducing pollution, such as ride-sharing and the city’s purchasing cars powered by alternative fuels.

The council last month tentatively endorsed a draft plan by the air quality board to reduce air pollution by the year 2007. But city officials said they had concerns about the effect of some of the plan’s suggestions on residents and business. The draft included suggestions for ride-sharing, controls on development, rescheduling of work hours and reducing workweeks.

The pollution board is scheduled to formally adopt the plan in March, but, Green said, she is still seeking input from Burbank city officials as well as other cities.

A report by the board earlier this year named the Burbank area--which included Glendale and North Hollywood--as a “hot spot” of air pollution. Hot spots are areas that show significantly higher concentrations of toxic air contaminants.

Concentrations in the Burbank area pose a cancer risk that, although low, is twice as high as in other areas of Los Angeles, the report said.

The increased risk means that the amount of contaminants could cause cancer in 100 of 100,000 people, based on the assumption that a person would be exposed to those concentrations over 70 years, district officials said.