Ozone Ranking Among Worst : Environment: Poor county showing occurs despite significant smog reductions in past two decades.

Only 12 areas in the nation registered worse ozone pollution than Ventura County last year, according to new Environmental Protection Agency statistics released this week.

The county also ranked sixth worst in the nation for the number of days that air quality failed to meet federal health standards for ozone pollution.

The poor showing for 1993 comes despite some of the most stringent regulations in the world and significant reductions in smog over the last 20 years, area pollution control officials said.

The county’s air quality failed to meet federal health standards on 122 days in 1974, compared to 13 days in 1993 and 15 days so far this year, said Bill Mount, deputy director of the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District.

The EPA shows that the county’s air did not meet standards on 18 days in 1993. But EPA figures include a state-operated station that is not included in county figures.

Peak concentrations of ozone, a primary component of smog, also dropped substantially from 0.260 parts per million in 1974 to 0.150 parts per million or less this year and last year.

“We don’t necessarily pollute more per capita than other areas, but we have the perfect conditions for smog,” Mount said. “We have the right topography and meteorology with the onshore winds that blow everything into the inland valleys, and we have a lot of people.”

The EPA report still classifies the county as having a “severe” air quality problem, a category exceeded only by the Los Angeles area’s “extreme” rating. Those designations have not changed since 1990.

The latest annual statistics, released Wednesday, come less than three weeks before the Ventura County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to consider the county’s new plan to guide clean air programs over the next 10 years.

The county, along with other areas of the nation, is required by amendments to the federal Clean Air Act to write a plan showing that the county’s air will no longer fail the health standards by 2005.

But the county’s new plan, which is to be considered Nov. 8, does not contain enough measures to meet the standards. The standards require that the ozone concentration in the air must not exceed 0.120 parts per million on more than three days during a three-year period.

*

The county has already tightly regulated most of the pollution sources within its control, including emissions from businesses and industries such as manufacturing operations, power plants, dry cleaners, roofers, auto body shops and others, Mount said.

Only the state and federal governments have jurisdiction over major polluters such as cars, ships, trains and interstate trucks, which account for more than 50% of the pollutants that cause smog. Agricultural sources such as pesticides also cannot be regulated by the local air pollution district.

However, with state and federal measures that will become available after a federal clean air plan is adopted in February, the county will be able to show it can meet clean air goals by 2005, said Scott Johnson, manager of planning for the district.

The state and federal governments both are working on regulations to control emissions from pesticides, he said. The state has a new mobile source plan to require use and manufacture of cleaner cars for use in the state.

*

And a federal plan, which is due to be adopted on Feb. 14, will include provisions to curb pollution from ships, trains and interstate trucks.

That document, called the Federal Implementation Plan, was drafted by the EPA on court order after districts in Ventura, Sacramento and the Los Angeles area failed to show in their 1982 air quality plans that air quality would meet federal standards by 1987.

The federal plan, which contained some provisions in its draft form that many business and government leaders feared would devastate the local economy, will be imposed on the three areas after it is adopted.

But the county can then take appropriate measures from that plan and from a similar state plan and incorporate them into a revised 1994 Air Quality Management Plan, Johnson said.

“We’re recommending that we do a 1995 revision to our plan almost before the ink is dry,” he said. “But the important thing is that we’re showing we won’t need the (federal) measures that are generating the most controversy.”

Johnson referred to one provision in the draft EPA plan that called for industry to reduce emissions 25% every year, regardless of whether they had already cut emissions by installing state-of-the-art equipment. The only way to achieve those goals would have been to cut production, business and air pollution officials said.

A second provision in the draft plan would have allowed large trucks coming from out of state to make only one stop in the county. That provision would have caused trouble for the agriculture industry, which depends on the same vehicle picking up loads from several packinghouses and fields.

The EPA determines the severity of air quality problems based on the number of days that federal health standards are not met. Here are the areas considered worse than Ventura County for 1993.

Days Area of nation standards exceeded South Coast Air Quality Management District * 124 Southeast Desert ** 87 San Joaquin Valley 43 Houston 29 Philadelphia 25 Ventura County 18

* Includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties

** Includes desert areas of San Bernardino, Riverside, Inyo, Imperial counties

Source: Environmental Protection Agency

Pollution Watch The EPA determines the severity of air quality problems based on the number of days that federal health standards are not met and the highest levels of ozone concentrations in the air. Here are the areas considered worse than Ventura County for 1993, the most recent year for which federal statistics are available.

Concentration of ozone Area of nation in parts per million South Coast 0.250 Houston 0.197 Southeast Desert 0.180 New York City 0.165 Atlanta 0.162 San Diego 0.160 San Joaquin Valley 0.160 Central Massachusetts 0.155 Central Connecticut 0.153 Sacramento 0.150 Baltimore 0.147 Ventura County 0.144

Source: Environmental Protection Agency