Summer Is Here, and So Are the Smog Alerts

Summer arrived in Southern California on Thursday with “moderate to very unhealthful” air in the South Coast Air Basin and first-stage smog alerts by late afternoon in Newhall, Glendora and Crestline.

At midday a gray blanket of visible “particulates” hovered over downtown Los Angeles, but the level of ozone, which is invisible, never reached the alert stage, officials said.

That was small solace to tens of thousands of smog victims, however.

“It’s just terrible out there,” one woman said.

“It’s worse today than it was yesterday,” lamented 14-year-old Courtney Bowers of Glendora, looking toward the smog-shrouded San Gabriel Mountains while on her way to a baby-sitting job. “It’s really a bummer when you can’t go outside to play.”

More of the same is predicted for today by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. That means some residents should take special notice.

When pollution reaches the first-stage level, children, the elderly and respiratory and heart patients should curtail outside activities and remain indoors, the AQMD says.

So far this year, there have been eight days when air pollution reached first-stage levels in the Los Angeles Basin, AQMD spokesman Bill Kelly said. The year’s first episode was in downtown Los Angeles on May 6.

Acute air pollution is usually caused by the notorious inversion layer of hot air that sometimes caps the basin, trapping cooler air and pollutants below it.

On Thursday, the third consecutive day of smog alerts, the inversion layer was at about 2,000 feet.

The AQMD reported first-stage episodes Wednesday in the East San Gabriel and Santa Clarita valleys, in northwest central and east San Bernardino Valley and in the central San Bernardino Mountains, around Crestline. On Tuesday, Redlands had a first-stage alert.

“So far, this year has been a little bit better because of turbulent weather in May and June,” Kelly said. “But we can’t really say much more than that, because episodes almost completely depend on the weather.”

He said the smog season lasts about six months, from May through October. Nearly all of the first-stage episodes occur during that period, Kelly said.

Year to year, weather is the biggest factor in how many smog alerts are declared, Kelly said.

But looking over a longer term, he cited Azusa in the East San Gabriel Valley as an example of improving air quality. In 1980, Kelly said, there were 74 stage-one alerts and seven days of stage-two levels in the Azusa area. The region experienced 30 days of air pollution at stage-one levels and no days over stage two in 1989, he said.