AQMD OKs Plan to Lower Pollution Linked to Utilities : Smog: Stringent new rule is the largest onslaught against nitrogen oxides, which create brown haze.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District board unanimously voted Friday for a stringent regulation to reduce pollution from the manufacture of electricity, one of the largest industrial contributors to the region’s smog.

The giant Southern California Edison Co., which is responsible for half the region’s utility emissions, endorsed the measure, closing years of both public and private debate.

But board members still had concerns about the pollution limits set for municipal utilities from Los Angeles, Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena--Los Angeles, because the limits were tightened at the last minute and the other three, because their emissions rates were left slightly higher than Edison’s. In passing the regulation, known formally as Rule 1135, the AQMD board decided to reconsider in October the limits set for those four.

The new rule is the largest single assault in the sweeping clean-air plan on nitrogen oxides, a class of pollutants responsible for the brown haze that frequently drifts on the horizon, as well as for fine acidic particles in the air.

Utility emissions, which now account for 25.8 tons per day of nitrogen oxides, would be limited to an average of 5.1 tons per day by 2000 and 4.5 tons per day in 2009.

Without tightened controls, emissions would have increased to 38.2 tons per day by 2000 and 45.8 tons per day in 2009, as a result of population growth leading to increased demand for electricity.

Attempts to control pollution from electric power plants date back to the early days of the AQMD, founded in 1977. The version adopted Friday was crafted during months of negotiations among the AQMD, the utilities, several state agencies and environmental and public-health groups.

All were anxious to end the long stalemate that had led to challenges in court and from the California Air Resources Board, which must approve the rule.

For the first time, Edison backed a rule that had environmentalists’ support. “I’ll take this rule and run like a bandit,” said Tim Little, executive director of the Coalition for Clean Air.

The rule will mean rate hikes of about 1% for customers of Edison and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The increase will be about 2.7% for customers of the Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena systems, which currently have lower prices than the large utilities.

Several board members voiced doubt that Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena should be allowed higher hourly emission rates than Edison and the DWP. Those cities will not be paying as much to control emissions “at the expense of the lungs of everyone else,” said board member Larry L. Berg.

Because the utilities are so small, said AQMD Executive Officer James M. Lents, the difference in overall pollution would be negligible if the rates were set at the level of Edison and the DWP.

“Don’t get into some huge study over a tenth of a ton (of nitrogen oxides each day),” Lents urged the board. “This is really the rule that won’t go away.”

The Los Angeles DWP had agreed to the same hourly rate as Edison, but asked in the week before the vote for an extension of the deadline from the end of 1999 to 2005. Though frantic negotiating followed, Lents said the AQMD was ultimately not convinced the change was justified.

The Air Resources Board and California Energy Commission also requested a technical change that tightened the daily emissions limits for the DWP.

John W. Schumann, the DWP manager of research and development, said the Los Angeles system would likely be liable for about $400,000 in fines each year if the rule stays as is, because the utility would be unable to stay within its limits about 80 days annually.