AQMD Clean Air Plan OKd With Conditions : Pollution: State threatens agency with sanctions unless it shows how it will meet smog reduction goals. Environmentalists say updated proposal is inadequate.

An updated plan to help rid the smoggy South Coast Basin of health-threatening levels of air pollution within 20 years was approved Friday by the state Air Resources Board, despite its own reservations and protests from environmentalists.

But in approving the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s clean air blueprint on an 8-1 vote, the board attached conditions and warned that unless its concerns were addressed by July 1, the regional smog agency would face sanctions. The vote came after a two-day hearing.

Among other things, board members said the plan fails to show how smog will be cut by 5% a year as required by state law and how the four-county basin of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino will meet 1999 car-pooling targets.

At the same time, the state air board said the AQMD must prove that its new approach for having companies cut pollution through an elaborate emissions trading market will be as effective and less costly than the restrictions on sources such as oil refinery stacks.

Despite the shortcomings, the ARB acknowledged that the plan is the best in the nation. Denying approval, board members said, would mean only more delays in bringing the region into compliance with federal clean air standards.

On some days the basin still exceeds by three times the federal health standard for ozone. Ozone can contribute to respiratory illness, reduce lung capacity and lower the body’s resistance to disease.

The basin also violates federal standards for carbon monoxide--which reduces oxygen in the blood--and microscopic particles that lodge deep in the lungs. It also is the nation’s only urban area to still violate federal limits on nitrogen dioxide, which interferes with the respiratory system.

“Having approved this plan doesn’t mean the state board goes away,” board Chairwoman Jananne Sharpless said. “The board has an obligation to move the package along.”

By July 1, the AQMD must set deadlines for showing progress and have contractual and funding commitments from local governments guaranteeing that they will do their share to reduce smog.

The state wants pledges from local government to reduce smog-producing traffic through better road design, increased parking charges to commuters and land use decisions that take air quality into account.

Without such guarantees, the air board said some of the AQMD’s plans for cutting smog are little more than wishful thinking.

If the AQMD fails to enact its new emissions credit program by July, the state will order the agency to impose 20 smog reduction regulations it has put on hold. Included are rules placing new controls on oil refinery equipment and glass manufacturers.

An emissions credit program is similar to the commodities market. Polluters may buy and sell emission credits on the open market. Companies that reduce pollution more than required earn credits that can be sold to companies that have not met pollution reduction targets set by the AQMD. The overall effect in the South Coast Basin is supposed to be a net reduction in smog.

The ARB also challenged the AQMD’s claim that commuters per vehicle during rush hours would average 1.5 by 1999. Now, the average is between 1.25 to 1.31 passengers per vehicle.

The two-day hearing at the AQMD’s Diamond Bar headquarters drew pleas from environmentalists urging the state to reject the plan and send it back to the AQMD for rewriting.

“You’re rolling the dice on an unproven and unprovable program,” said Jim Jenal, clean air program director for Citizens for a Better Environment. “The AQMD is abdicating its responsibility for cleaning the air.” Jenal urged the board to reject or limit the emissions trading concept.

Jeff Hill, executive director of the Coalition for Clean Air, warned that his group would file lawsuits to ensure that smog would be cut by 5% a year as required by the California Clean Air Act.

Also urging a rewrite of the plan were representatives from the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“There is a big risk if emissions trading crashes and burns between now and July,” said Jim Boyd, ARB executive officer. But if it succeeds, he said, the region will go ahead of schedule in meeting interim clean air goals.

Environmentalists drew support from Andrew Wortman, the only board member to vote against the plan.

“This is not a plan,” Wortman said. “It’s an expression of goodwill. I don’t see how we can approve this with so many gaps in it.”