Clean-Air Panel Unveils 47 Ways to Battle Smog : Environment: Restrictions on back-yard barbecues and home water heaters are among the recommendations.

Taking on everything from power plants to back-yard barbecues, the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District today will unveil 47 new tactics to reduce smog-forming emissions over the next five years.

Most of the proposed tactics, which are set forth in the district’s draft 1991 Regional Air Quality Strategy, are aimed at reducing industry-related pollutants, such as emissions from power-generating boilers, fiberglass and plastics manufacturing, and dry cleaners.

But other measures in the strategy report could directly affect the way San Diegans live. One proposal would prohibit the sale of charcoal lighter fluid. Another would require that special water heaters be installed in homes.

The 74-page strategy report, which will be presented to the county Board of Supervisors today, is part of the county’s effort to comply with the California Clean Air Act, which requires a 5% annual reduction in emissions until the year 2000.

Each year, San Diego County falls short of that goal, according to Bob Goggin, an APCD spokesman. With uninterrupted population growth and the resulting increase in traffic and automobile exhaust fumes, he said, improvements in air quality are coming more slowly than desired.

“We expect to get about a 3% decrease (in annual emissions)--a 2%-per-year shortfall,” said Goggin, who said the state does not sanction the county for its failure, as long as the county uses all feasible measures to improve.

But there are other costs. Based on national statistics, air pollution contributes to about 600 deaths each year in San Diego and $500 million to $900 million in health-care costs, air quality officials estimate.

“The health issue is increasingly alarming,” Goggin said.

In response to these concerns and to the state mandate, the APCD earlier this year announced a proposed countywide traffic reduction program that would force employers to offer incentives for solo commuters to stop traveling alone. The program, which could begin in 1992, is still being revised.

This week when the Board of Supervisors, acting as the Air Pollution Control Board, receives the new emission reduction tactics for industries and homeowners, all of the elements of the county’s draft air quality plan will be on the table.

If, as expected, the supervisors release the report for review by the public and other agencies, workshops will be held in August and September to gather community reaction. Revisions will be made after those discussions, and the board will probably consider final adoption in November.

Between now and then, county air quality officials expect to hear some opposition to their plan, which would cost local industries and homeowners an estimated $132 million to $191 million to implement.

If the new tactics are approved as proposed, everyone from furniture and automobile refinishers to semiconductor manufacturers would be affected.

Companies that use foam blowers to make plastics would be required to install emission collection systems. Restaurants that cook food over direct flame would have to add electrostatic precipitators on their grill exhaust stacks. And commercial bakeries producing more than 500 tons of bread per year would be required to install catalytic and thermal incinerators.

Homeowners would see changes as well. Under the proposed measures, solar heating equipment would be required on all new swimming pools, hot tubs and home water heaters. Homes that already have other mechanisms to heat water would be required to retrofit with solar equipment on resale.

Goggin said that, since San Diego County has had industrial air quality restrictions in place for a long time, there are no major categories left in which big emissions reductions can be achieved.

Therefore, the proposed tactics involve “trimming” a little here and there from a wide range of industry and household emissions. If all the proposed tactics are implemented, Goggin said, smog-forming emissions will be reduced about 35 tons a day by the end of the decade.