Air Quality Dispute Poses Threat to Expansion Hopes at Base : Military: Edwards could grow as a result of closures and cutbacks elsewhere. But an EPA pollution designation might stand in the way.

Nestled deep in the Mojave Desert, miles from the smudgy emissions of city smokestacks and traffic jams, this vast military preserve seems an unlikely place for anyone to worry about smog.

Pilots often can see 100 miles in all directions as they streak through pale blue skies that seem to stretch forever. Indeed, good visibility is a prime reason the 301,000-acre base enjoys a reputation as the Air Force’s premier aircraft flight-testing station.

But as the Pentagon considers how to reconfigure military bases as part of a nationwide defense downsizing, smog’s main constituent--ozone--looms as a potential pitfall for Edwards.

Many bases are slated for closure or major reductions, but supporters believe Edwards--which employs 13,700 people--may grow as a result of the downsizing process. State and local politicians and business people have lobbied hard for Edwards to receive work from other air bases that may be broken up.

But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lists Edwards as part of an ozone “non-attainment area,” meaning it violates federal standards for the pollutant. Although Edwards produces relatively little air pollution, the EPA lumped it together with the rest of Kern County, including the Bakersfield area, which lies 70 miles away and generates far more air pollution. Most of the base is in the southeastern corner of Kern County.

Base supporters worry that Edwards’ ozone offender status, which they say is unwarranted, may clash with a provision of the federal Clean Air Act that prohibits the government from building new facilities if they aggravate existing pollution problems.

The ozone controversy comes as Pentagon officials prepare a list of bases that will be targeted for closure or cutbacks. Defense Secretary William J. Perry must forward the recommendations to the federal Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission by March 1. After public hearings, the commission will make recommendations to President Clinton on July 1.

The base closure process, which began in 1988, has been a highly political exercise, and Edwards backers worry that members of Congress representing bases elsewhere in the country could use the ozone issue as a way to prevent military assets from flowing to the desert base.

With some flight-test programs at Edwards winding down, supporters say, the absence of new facilities at the base could produce higher unemployment and lower revenues for local businesses. The base, about 100 miles northwest of Downtown Los Angeles, is the Antelope Valley’s largest employer.

“If the programs at Edwards are winding down . . . and nothing replaces them, Edwards might eventually become a maintenance base, with a skeletal crew only to maintain the runway,” said Denise Henderson, president of the Antelope Valley Board of Trade.

In a Dec. 22 letter to Perry, U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein said it would be “unfair and pointless” to deny additional facilities to Edwards and the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station on grounds of pollution the bases did not generate. China Lake is about 50 miles northeast of Edwards, near Ridgecrest.

“We understand that these facilities may not even be considered to receive additional responsibilities in the (base closure) process because of alleged air pollution problems,” the senators wrote. “If true, this would be tremendously unfair.”

A spokeswoman for the Air Force said it is bound by federal air quality laws but declined to say if those rules might exclude Edwards, given its ozone status, from being considered for additional facilities during the base-closure process.

In a Dec. 20 memo to Feinstein’s office, the Air Force said that under the Clean Air Act it cannot transfer assets into a non-attainment area unless it can demonstrate that such action “will not cause or contribute to new violations of any national air quality standard in the affected areas, nor increase the frequency or severity of an existing violation.”

The memo, signed by Lt. Col. Donald S. Ellis, said Edwards was in a non-attainment area for both ozone and particulate matter 10, which includes tiny particles released by gasoline and diesel engines and cement plants and which can cause lung cancer and other problems.

But Tom Paxson, air pollution control officer for the Kern County Air Pollution Control District, said that Edwards is only in an ozone non-attainment area and that he expects the base area to be in compliance with federal ozone rules no later than 1999.

Paxson said Edwards wound up in a non-attainment zone in 1990 only because there were no monitoring stations in the area then and the EPA used air pollution data encompassing all of Kern County. Most air pollution over the base is the result of material drifting in from the Bakersfield and San Fernando Valley areas, he said.

In 1993, a monitoring station was set up in Mojave, near the base, and data from it shows that ozone levels around Edwards exceeded federal standards for only two hours that year and not at all in 1994, Paxson said.

But under federal rules, he said, there must be three consecutive years of data showing no more than one ozone violation in the area before it can be removed from the non-attainment list. Thus, the Edwards area could achieve compliance with federal ozone rules no earlier than 1996.

Although the base is in a non-attainment area, Paxson said, overall air pollution levels are dropping in eastern Kern County as a result of local and state controls on emissions from motor vehicles, home water heaters, spray-painters and other sources.

Since the base itself produces so little pollution, any new facilities there would not worsen air quality in east Kern County, he said.

“If Edwards brought in a new (aircraft) test wing, we’d still have net emission reductions since 1990,” Paxson said.

But base supporters worry that in the rough-and-tumble political struggle over which bases will be carved up and which will remain intact or grow, members of Congress representing other bases will turn the pollution issue against Edwards.

“That’s just one more arrow in the quiver of the East Coast installations,” said Henderson, of the Antelope Valley Board of Trade.

“This is a real good target for them to shoot at. And California’s not particularly popular this year.”