Plan Says Clean-Air Standards Won’t Be Met : Pollution: Officials predict that emissions will decline through the year 2000 despite business and population growth.

Ventura County’s air will fail to meet state and federal health standards through the end of the century, according to a draft 1991 Air Quality Management Plan due to be released today.

But for the first time since the Air Pollution Control District was created in 1968, the plan shows that pollution-causing emissions will decline through the year 2000 in Ventura County, despite population and business growth.

The county’s population is expected to increase to 893,040 by 2010, an increase of 45% since the last Air Quality Management Plan was written in 1987. The air quality plan outlines the county’s strategy to reduce pollution and is required for all districts that fail state standards.

“When you are looking at that kind of growth and continue to see emissions decrease, that’s significant improvement,” said William Mount, the district’s planning chief and principal architect of the air quality plan.

The plan would reduce pollution-causing emissions by about a third, far short of the 50% to 70% in reductions needed to meet federal and state standards.

As new technology becomes available, Mount said, the district will continue to revise the plan and add new regulations.

But environmentalists said Monday that the Air Pollution Control District should have created a plan that would clean up the county’s air enough to meet state and federal standards more quickly.

“We think our district has a legal obligation to create a plan that allows the citizens to breathe clean air,” said Pat Baggerly of the Ventura County Environmental Coalition. “That’s the only job they have. Their job is not to compromise with industry.”

Baggerly cited a plan created by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

“They have shown that they can attain health-based standards, and they have the dirtiest air in the country,” she said.

But Mount said the South Coast plan depends in part on technology that does not yet exist. For instance, he said, the plan would require conversion of almost all motor vehicles to electricity and require completely non-polluting paints.

“Those are pie-in-the-sky controls,” Mount said. However, if the technology evolves, the Ventura district will implement new regulations, he said.

Ventura County’s air fails federal health standards for ozone pollution about 44 days a year and fails the more stringent state standards 125 days a year. Ozone, a primary component of smog, can cause permanent lung and respiratory damage in adults and children, studies have shown.

Ozone is created when nitrogen oxides combine with reactive hydrocarbons in sunlight. The single largest stationary source of nitrogen oxides is Southern California Edison. Edison’s Oxnard power plants contribute 13 tons a day, or 18% of the 72 tons produced in the county on a typical summer day. Motor vehicles contribute about half of all the nitrogen oxide emissions in the county.

Business, industry and automobiles together emit about 87 tons of reactive hydrocarbons into the county’s air on a typical summer day. Motor vehicles account for about 32% of that. Solvents are the next-largest source of hydrocarbon emissions, accounting for about 25% of the daily emissions.

The new plan proposes to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 38% and reactive hydrocarbons by 28% from 1987 levels.

But the county would need to reduce both sources of pollution by about 50% to reach federal standards and by 70% to reach state standards, Mount said.

The plan includes stringent regulations on paints, printing ink and barbecue lighter fluid. It proposes that stationary gas or diesel engines used by industry be converted to electricity, and it sets requirements for the use of clean-fuel fleets by companies.

The plan also includes regulations that were proposed or enacted since the 1987 plan, as well as recommendations to make existing regulations more strict.

One such proposed regulation in the plan is Rule 59, which would require Edison to reduce its emissions by 90%. But Edison has threatened to sue if the requirement is not watered down. So far, the district does not intend to compromise on Rule 59, Mount said.

Rule 210, an existing regulation that requires large companies to provide incentives for employees to share rides, would be expanded to include small companies in multi-office complexes.

The Air Quality Plan is scheduled to become available at 8 a.m. today at the County Government Center, free of charge, and is also available for review at county libraries. Residents, businesses and public agencies have until June 11 to comment on the plan. After the district answers the comments and makes any necessary revisions, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors will vote on the final plan in August.

Mount said the district expects opposition from business and industry as well as environmentalists. But he said the plan contains much of the same kind of regulations the South Coast district has already adopted.

“It’s very stringent and some of it will be expensive,” Mount said. “But I don’t think it will shock anybody.”