County Approves Own Proposal to Fight Air Pollution : Smog: Alternative awaits federal review. It cracks down on pesticides and smoky vehicles but eases rules in three key areas.

Unhappy with proposed federal rules, Ventura County on Tuesday approved its own air pollution plan, calling for stricter controls on pesticides and cracking down on smoke-belching motor vehicles.

The local clean-air plan, however, would lessen restrictions on three key sources of pollution: private planes, commercial delivery trucks and stationary polluters such as power plants.

Backed by strong support from the local business community, the county Air Pollution Control Board voted to forward the anti-smog alternative to state and federal officials by Nov. 15.

One of 43 urban areas nationwide that do not meet federal air quality standards, Ventura County is under court and federal order to clean up its air substantially by 2005.

The county is required to show air quality improvements in increments beginning in 1996. More than 80 tons of smog is produced in Ventura County each day.

Local business people have been meeting with air quality officials to draft an alternate plan to reduce smog in Ventura County, while working around strict federal mandates they say would devastate industry and cost untold jobs.

Once the county alternative is evaluated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, federal regulators will decide whether to allow the local plan to substitute for the sweeping clean-air package known as the Federal Implementation Plan unveiled earlier this year.

County Air Pollution Control Officer Richard H. Baldwin predicted the EPA would welcome an alternative to its stringent plan, which targets virtually every source of air pollution in California.

“They desperately want a plan to replace the Federal Implementation Plan,” Baldwin said of the EPA. “They’ve been asking for one over and over. We believe this plan will do that.”

Baldwin said the county already has made great strides in reducing smog over the past 20 years.

In 1974, the county did not meet federal clean air standards on 122 days. In 1980, there were 61 smoggy days, and in 1990 there were 18 non-attainment days, he said. The number dropped to 13 a year ago.

Federal standards require that concentrations of ozone, the principal component of smog, not exceed 0.120 parts per million on more than three days during a three-year period.

But if more progress is not made, Baldwin warned, the federal government could impose a series of sanctions, including withholding federal highway project funds from the county.

The county’s alternative is the result of two years of study by a local task force representing industry, environmental groups and cities.

The plan accomplishes the federal smog reduction goals despite cutting restrictions on planes, trucks and many stationary sources of smog.

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Baldwin’s plan would change the method used to track smog. By rounding off emission levels of ozone to the nearest part per 100 million instead of part per 1 billion, the county could reach clean air standards, he said.

The new calculations would do away with the need to reduce smog from other sources by 5% to 10%, Baldwin said.

Although the EPA has not yet agreed to approve the recalculations, county pollution analyst Scott Johnson said federal officials indicated to him that it would be permitted.

Ventura County’s plan would also meet federal ozone guidelines by taking credit for some programs not counted by the EPA and including some new smog policies, Johnson said.

“They may have a problem with measures that aren’t fully adopted yet, but the solution for us is just to continue developing the rules,” he said.

More than half of Ventura County’s smog is caused by automobiles.

And one primary way Ventura County can achieve its clean air goals is by separating smog test shops and auto repair businesses to cut smog-check abuses, Johnson said. The county would also allow the cost of repairing auto smog devices to increase to $450.

“You wouldn’t be able to get your car checked and repaired at the same facility,” Johnson said. That would force vehicle owners to meet county standards twice, he said.

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Large gains would also be made by requiring farmers to use fewer polluting chemicals when spraying crops with pesticides, Johnson said.

“We’re asking the state to consider an emission reduction target that’s at the top end of what the EPA proposed, rather than looking at the bottom end,” he said.

No one who spoke at Tuesday’s hearing opposed the county’s clean air plan.

But Stan Greene, president of Citizens to Preserve the Ojai, said he worries that the EPA will not agree to rounding off emission levels or other portions of the Ventura County plan. He did credit community leaders with getting involved in the task force, however.

“The important thing is that this is a health issue,” said Greene, whose group was one of several that successfully sued the government in 1988 to make sure that clean air standards were enforced.

“If we can reach attainment with the input of the community, knowing our own problems better than the federal government, then the EPA will accept it,” Greene said.