Supervisors Again Delay Anti-Smog Campaign : Environment: A pollution control official cites the lack of a specialist and a flood of inquiries for the wait in implementing the trip-reduction program aimed at employers.

For the second time this year, Ventura County has postponed launching a plan to reduce air pollution by requiring businesses to develop car- and van-pools, staggered work hours and other trip-reduction programs among their employees.

The campaign, now due to start Nov. 1, is being delayed in part because the county has not yet hired a specialist to help coordinate the plan with private industry, Richard H. Baldwin, the county’s air pollution control officer, told the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.

The program is also behind schedule because an unexpectedly large number of employers are inquiring about it, Baldwin added.

“Every time we pick up the phone, somebody has a question,” he said. “There’s a lot of interest in the business community. People want to comply.”

The program’s first phase, covering businesses and government agencies with 100 or more workers, originally was scheduled to begin Jan. 1, but that date was set back to Aug. 1 when two key employees left the Air Pollution Control District.

One of the officials, Planning Director William Mount, has returned, but the second position, that of air quality specialist, remains unfilled, Baldwin said Tuesday. “We’re interviewing candidates and hope to hire someone soon,” he said.

Baldwin said a booklet designed to help company officials carry out the campaign will go to the printer this week. But he said that preparing other material connected with the campaign is taking longer than expected.

Despite the delay in starting the first phase for employers with more than 100 workers, he said, the second and third phases, involving smaller businesses, should begin on schedule. Companies with 75 or more workers are to be brought into the program in August, 1991, and those with 50 to 75 workers in January, 1992.

“In the end, we should come out on schedule,” Baldwin said.

County government, which has 6,200 workers, has already begun a trip-reduction program among its employees.

The trip-reduction program, called Rule 210, was adopted by the supervisors to help bring the county into compliance with state and federal clean-air laws.

“If you’re getting a lot of interest in the business community, that’s good,” Supervisor James R. Dougherty said in joining his fellow board members in approving the delay.

Besides car- and van-pooling and flexible hours, employees will be urged to come to work by bicycle and public transit and, where appropriate, to work at home.

The rule gives employers 120 days to develop plans that will reduce the number of workers who drive to work alone between 6 and 10 a.m. “Those are the critical hours because that’s when the greatest concentration of ozone levels are created that will be felt in the early afternoon,” Baldwin said.

He said that in the program’s first few years, companies will be asked to set a goal of 1.35 employees per car. That will be raised to 1.5 workers per car in 1997, he added.

While there is no penalty for companies and agencies that fail to reach the goals, state law provides for a $25,000 fine per day for failure to file a trip-reduction plan, Baldwin said.

County officials said more than 140,000 employees and nearly 600 employers ultimately will be affected by the plan. Even if the program is a success, officials concede, it will reduce the two chief components of smog, oxides of nitrogen and reactive organic compounds, by only about 1% and 0.05% respectively. The county must reduce both compounds by about 40% to reach state and federal goals.