Businesses Start Work on Own Clean-Air Plan : Environment: Boosters contend they can reduce pollution without harming industry.
Under federal orders to reduce smog from Ventura County skies, business boosters have launched an effort to draft a more industry-friendly strategy that still satisfies clean-air standards.
Their work must be largely completed by mid-July, when the federal government holds a public hearing to discuss its own smog-busting plan for Ventura County.
The 1,600-page federal plan, unveiled in late March, has drawn sharp criticism from all segments of Ventura County’s business community, including farmers, shippers and factory owners.
Under the federal government’s proposal, for instance, any interstate truck not meeting California emission standards would be allowed to stop only once in Ventura County. That restriction could devastate local agriculture, farmers said, because produce trucks need to stop at several fields and packing houses each day.
Another provision targeted for revision calls for each stationary source of air pollution--from a smoke-spurting factory to a deep-fat fryer--to slash emissions by 5% a year starting in 2000.
Since Ventura County’s existing laws have already reduced some emissions from industrial plants, some air quality experts doubt that the 5% target could ever be achieved.
“If you have the best technology available, the only way to meet those caps is to cut back on production,” said William Mount, deputy director of the Air Pollution Control District. “That’s certainly onerous.”
But environmentalists warn that strict standards are essential to clean up Ventura County’s air. And they say the federal plan was written in the first place because local regulations failed to wipe out enough smog.
“We’ve got to tighten the screws on everybody,” said Greg Helms, a spokesman for the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara. “This region has the seventh-worst air quality in the country--we’ve got to get going here.”
The business community contends it can clean the air without harming industry, by crafting broad-based measures targeted at typical residents.
Most remaining air pollution comes from automobiles and other vehicles. And a half-cent sales tax, for instance, could fund mass transit programs to get people out of their cars.
Those who stick with their automobiles might have to pay a fee of up to $10 during each registration renewal, with the proceeds buying environment-friendly natural gas buses.
And all car owners might have to submit to a smog inspection that used extra-sensitive detectors to nab every last exhaust-belching vehicle.
“Obviously, there are less Draconian ways (than those proposed by the federal government) to meet the air quality standards,” said Marc Charney, president of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn.
“At least,” Charney said, “we think we can find them.”
But Helm warned that businesses could shove too much of the responsibility into residents’ hands. “We definitely see that the burden of improving air quality has to be borne by society at large,” he said. “However, there’s a risk that the oil industry will point a finger at auto drivers and say they’re the main cause.”
To help business come up with a plan acceptable to environmentalists, the economic development association and the Council on Economic Vitality have hired two consultants.
They hope their alternative plan will protect the deep-water Port of Hueneme from proposed fees on smoke-belching ships. They also hope to please farmers by knocking out a federal proposal to limit commonly used pesticides.
To cover a projected $150,000 in consulting fees, economic development association and Council on Economic Vitality officials have asked for donations from cities, business leaders and the county’s Clean Air Fund.
To date, Ventura and Thousand Oaks have pledged money, the Oxnard City Council is scheduled to vote on the issue next week, and the business community has chipped in about $15,000.
“This is not an attempt to evade the (federal) standards, but an attempt to find a more acceptable way to meet them,” said Thousand Oaks Councilwoman Judy Lazar, who voted to spend $8,000 of city funds on the study.
Drafting a new plan that will earn local and federal approval “calls for being very creative,” said consultant Janet Dillon, an Oxnard-based environmental attorney.
“All groups (must) look at their own emissions and make sacrifices,” Dillon added, “so we can clean the air while keeping our economic vitality.”
