EPA to Release Clean Air Plan for County

The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency today will release a plan to clean Ventura County skies by imposing mandates on farmers and others who contribute to the 10th-worst air quality in the country.

The draft will allow for a public comment period of at least six months before a final air quality plan is approved next year, EPA officials said Monday.

The plan is the result of a series of lawsuits brought against the EPA for failing to require local air pollution control districts in the Los Angeles, Ventura County and Sacramento areas to comply with the federal Clean Air Act.

The plan would allow the three areas, which account for 15 million people and half the state’s population, 10 years to reach federal health standards for clean air.

Citizens to Preserve the Ojai sued the EPA in 1988, claiming that the government failed to adhere to its own air quality standards. But group officials earlier this month agreed in a split vote not to contest the 10-year attainment schedule proposed by EPA.

“We asked for a clear, comprehensive plan that the citizens could readily understand before 2005, preferably by 2002,” said Pat Baggerly, one of the opponents of the agreement. “But they just kept saying no.”

The plan to be released today will very likely include mandates that farmers restrict the use of certain pesticides that contain air pollutants as well as other measures to improve the air quality, EPA officials said.

“Because of the magnitude of reductions necessary to attain the health standard in these three areas, the (plans) will call for emission reductions from most every stationary and mobile source of air emissions,” EPA spokesman Bill Glenn said.