Denver’s Tough Approach to Pollution Is Breath of Fresh Air : The city cuts smog so well that its law on gasoline agents to cut carbon monoxide is made part of the U.S. Clean Air Act.

Thus far, it has been an environmental turnaround so dramatic that it is difficult to imagine it happened here. Not here, not in a city and state where restriction and regulation are fighting words.

Yet, in a scant five years, Denver, whose pollution problems at one point had surpassed even those of Los Angeles, has gone so far in cleaning up its act that it has become a model for the nation’s anti-pollution efforts.

The area’s hazardous carbon monoxide emissions have plummeted, and the state’s precedent-setting efforts to control automobile emissions have been incorporated into the national Clean Air Act.

Contrary to its 1970s image of fresh air and blue skies, Denver and its surrounding communities had been plagued by air quality woes for nearly two decades. The grim reminder was an ugly, grimy pall of pollution that arrived every winter and hovered over downtown, cutting off skyscrapers at the second-story level and blocking views of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains.

Residents even gave a name to their pain--The Brown Cloud.

Scientists and local environmentalists had warned residents as early as 1971 about Denver’s developing pollution. The American Academy for the Advancement of Science even noted in 1977 that its residents had higher carbon monoxide levels in their blood than those of any other city tested.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had admonished the city for consistently exceeding the maximum allowable federal standards for carbon monoxide levels, which by 1978 the city was doing nearly every winter day.

In 1985, the National Institutes of Health found Denver to have the fourth-highest rate of lung diseases--pneumonia, emphysema, bronchitis and asthma--in the nation. Death rates in the city from asthma, emphysema and other chronic obstructive lung diseases were 30% worse than the national norm.

The city’s pollution had become so infamous that a survey by the local Chamber of Commerce of heads of Fortune 500 companies found pollution to be a major reason for not relocating to the area. That spelled real trouble. In a city that desperately needed new business, nobody wanted to come.

The city and state launched a publicity campaign calling for voluntary reductions in automobile use and wood-burning, which together account for 80% of the problem.

“They tried a lot of things but, basically, none of it worked,” said Irv Dickstein, director of the air and toxics division for the EPA’s Rocky Mountain Region. “The most difficult thing was trying to get people out of their cars.”

Prodded largely by the local business community and environmentalists, the state Air Quality Commission, the state Legislature and local communities began a broad range of measures.

In 1986, the Legislature instituted the Automobile Inspection and Readjustment program, the equivalent to California’s smog check, and beefed up the program’s enforcement efforts by installing computers to weed out phony approvals by unscrupulous operators.

A year later, Denver and many of the surrounding communities instituted a mandatory ban on use of wood-burning fireplaces and stoves during projected high-pollution days. Violators could be fined up to $1,000 and even sentenced to jail.

In 1988, the nine-member, governor-appointed commission took its most controversial and precedent-setting step. After heated debate, it ordered the addition of oxygenating agents to gasoline at service stations from November to April, the area’s high-pollution season. The oxygenating agents--ethyl alcohol, commonly referred to as gasohol, and methylertiarybutylether (MTBE)--reduce carbon monoxide emissions.

“That was politically the most difficult decision by far,” says Mel Branch, an air quality commissioner and mechanical engineering professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Like other commissioners, Branch’s telephone rang off the hook when the commission first began considering the measure. Irate residents claimed that the addition of the oxygenating agents was equivalent to everything from communism to just downright unfair, because it only applied to cars in the Denver area.

The oil industry also opposed the measure, contending that it would damage engines and increase gasoline prices 10% or more.

“I guess the most absurd charges were that the vehicles would just grind to a halt on the highway because they had rotted away and then people would get out of their cars and be killed,” he said.

None of those scenarios came true.

“When it was first introduced, some people said: ‘My car runs better,’ ” recalled Henry Harman, owner of Airport Standard Service. “Some people said: ‘My car runs worse.’ People thought they could detect a slight change in the odor from the exhaust. Then the next year, you didn’t hear a darn thing.”

The results have been dramatic. EPA carbon monoxide violation days dropped from nearly 80 in 1984 to just four last year. Based on that performance, the federal Clean Air Act calls for the use of oxygenating fuels in communities that violate carbon monoxide standards. (Although Los Angeles and other Southern California communities violate those standards, oxygenating fuels might increase ozone, which is the main smog problem in the Los Angeles basin. The federal act does not require use of the fuels where they might worsen air quality.)

Denver’s action set the tone for greater anti-pollution efforts by municipalities and counties. Nearby Longmont, for instance, pays half the bus passes for its employees. Boulder has gone even further, offering free bus passes to all its employees and van pools with city vehicles. The surrounding county subsidizes bus passes and gives tokens for bus trips.

Aurora grants a sales tax credit for all equipment and materials purchased to convert a wood-burning unit to natural gas. Officials handed out 248 refunds in 1989 and 1990. Lafayette allows installation of certified wood stoves only. Castle Rock has banned all wood-burning devices in new construction and remodeled units.

Denver and its surrounding communities have not declared victory. Pollution levels in the region are still higher than acceptable. Increased population and automobile travel could erase what gains have been made.

“We are billions of dollars short of building the transportation system that planners think would provide adequate mobility,” said John Leary, the Air Quality Commission’s acting director.

What is needed now, Leary and others say, are more fundamental changes in the way people live and a larger commitment.

“It is a much tougher issue now,” said Patti Shwayter, the commission’s assistant director. “What we accomplished in the past didn’t really have a big impact on people. “Now we’re talking about lifestyle changes, high uses of public transportation, HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes, no more fireplaces. There are questions of the amount of financial expense involved.”

The question now is, do state legislators and their constituents have the will to move forward? Despite the city’s ban this year on the sale of leaded gasoline, there are indications that the commitment may be beginning to wane.

For instance, a legislative proposal to ban all wood-burning devices in new construction failed earlier this year.

“In a lot of ways, we’re the victim of our own success,” Leary said. “We say we need to do more. At the same time, there’s a news release that says we’ve made all this progress. There is some confusion.”

Times researcher Ann Rovin contributed to this story.