Area’s Smog-Check Program Due for Overhaul : Pollution: Plans in the offing call for traffic sensors, mileage tracking and a crackdown on repair shops in the county.

Moving on three fronts to catch the worst-polluting cars, officials are driving hard to turn Ventura County’s smog-check program into the toughest in the state.

For starters, infrared sensors will be installed along county roadways next year to record exhaust emissions and license plates of cars as they zoom past. Owners of vehicles with the dirtiest exhaust will get a notice requiring an immediate smog check.

Under a more tentative plan, state officials could also start tracking mileage and pollution rates for each car. Using a complex formula, officials would require owners of vehicles that log too many miles--and thus spew too much pollution--to get yearly vehicle smog tests, instead of one every two years.

Ventura County’s top smog cop is pushing a third option: cracking down on the sloppy and sometimes fraudulent smog checks at local repair shops by redirecting nearly all of the county’s half-million registered vehicles to eight closely monitored smog-test stations.

“Consistently, we found problems with the smog checks at test and repair shops,” said Richard Baldwin, the county’s air pollution control officer. “Only 24% of all tests were being done correctly. That’s a pretty low success rate.”

Automobiles now contribute more than half of the county’s smog, making cars an easy target for local smog busters who have spent 15 years tightening controls on smokestacks and other industrial polluters.

“We’ve squeezed about all we can out of industry,” Baldwin said. “We’ve picked all of the low fruit.”

So the county’s Air Pollution Control District has decided to seek legislation that would expand the agency’s authority to include automobile pollution--now the domain of state government.

Specifically, the agency wants the Legislature to allow Ventura County to set up its own centralized smog-testing program.

Essentially, the program would hire contractors to set up eight stations that would only perform smog inspections, eliminating smog testing now available at 235 neighborhood garages and repair shops across the county. If approved, it would be the only centralized testing program in California.

Fourteen other states have established similar smog-test programs, and the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency directed California to start such a program three years ago. But state leaders balked at taking business away from the 9,600 car repair shops statewide now doing the work.

Instead, the state has devised a hybrid program, called Smog Check II, that will use the roadside infrared censors and other means to nab the worst polluters on the highway and send them to inspection-only smog stations.

The vast majority of vehicles will continue to go to local garages and other repair shops for smog checkups every other year.

“The repair industry wants to keep as much repair business as possible, the consumer wants as little inconvenience as possible and the EPA wants us to clean up the air,” said Martin Keller, chief of the state Bureau of Automotive Repair. “Our job is to balance those interests.”

Keller said he believes the typical motorist will only notice two things with the Smog Check II program when it begins between January and July, 1996.

First, he said, the costs of the tests will go up because garages have to purchase new high-tech equipment. Secondly, motorists may see automotive repair bills climb because the machines are more sensitive.

“There is enormous support for our program that targets ‘gross polluters’ because everyone thinks that it is someone else,” Keller said.

State officials believe that only 15% of all drivers--mostly the worst polluters--will be directed to the inspection-only smog station centers set up around the state. EPA officials place the number at 30%. The two sides are still negotiating the details of the new program.

Keller said it has yet to be determined whether one of the state’s inspection-only stations will be placed in Ventura County. That leaves the possibility that some motorists may have to drive to another county for a smog check.

But, he said, Ventura County will definitely have a number of roadside sensors that will trigger immediate smog checks for the worst-polluting vehicles.

Using an infrared beam of light, the censor can “read” a trail of exhaust as a car passes. In that same instant, the high-tech device either takes a picture of the car’s license plate or has a digital reader that can record the license number.

The sensors have been tested on the streets of Sacramento in recent months, and state officials are expected to unveil a study of the results Monday.

A separate study showed that 58% of the cars that were flunked by the sensors had no trouble passing follow-up tests using standard smog-check equipment.

County air pollution control officials fear a public backlash if state officials use sensors to send cars needlessly to inspection-only stations for a checkup.

“It’ll kill the program,” Baldwin said. “There will be public outrage.”

Baldwin argues that centralized testing for all cars would be more convenient because the volume of cars would prompt the construction of inspection-only stations across the county.

Moreover, he said, studies show that the accuracy of tests performed at centralized smog-check stations forces needed repairs, and thus eliminates twice as much pollution as smog checks at neighborhood repair shops.

“You completely eliminate the conflict of interest of the shop doing the test and the repair,” he said.

Baldwin cites one study’s conclusion that 18% of tests performed by repair shops statewide are fraudulently performed using a clean-burning car to stand in for a heavily polluting vehicle during the test--a practice known as “clean-piping.”

“We’ve done some prosecutions for clean-piping,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Schwartz said. “It’s an environmental problem because dirty vehicles are on the streets that shouldn’t be. It’s a consumer problem because a person may purchase a car that has a fraudulent smog certificate and when they go get checked two years later, the car will not pass.”

Local repair shop owners say fraud is not a big problem, but that officials are unfairly trying to taint all repair shops.

“I don’t think it’s occurring,” said Jim McConica, owner of McConica Motors in Ventura. “If there were fraudulent things going on, I’d hear about it.”

Automobile dealers and repair shops strongly oppose centralized testing, saying it will hurt their business and inconvenience motorists.

McConica said his dealership would lose its ability to quickly test and repair trade-in cars before putting them up for resale.

“We could have to hire people who could drive cars over to the test center, sit in long lines for the test,” he said. “If the car doesn’t pass, we’d have to bring the car back, get it fixed and then sit in the long line to get the retest.”

The Camarillo City Council, which voted unanimously last month to oppose centralized testing, cited this fear of “ping-ponging” between test centers and repair shops in a letter to air pollution control officials.

The letter also stated that hundreds of service station owners have already invested thousands of dollars in smog-testing equipment. “We find this to be an insensible bureaucratic plan forced on our county’s small businesses at a time when our economy is still struggling to survive,” the city wrote.

Baldwin acknowledges that his proposal faces an uphill battle, given the clout of the auto repair industry.

“I’ve been told that every smog shop in California is going to oppose me doing this,” Baldwin said. “The irony is that if smog shops were doing the tests right, then we wouldn’t need this.”

Baldwin said he got the idea from the Ventura County Economic Development Assn., which included centralized smog testing in its alternative plan to help the county clean its air by 2005, the federal deadline for meeting clean-air standards.

VCEDA, which counts many of the area’s largest businesses as its members, has argued that it would be less costly to reduce air pollution from cars than tighten controls on industry and risk scaring away companies and local jobs.

VCEDA board member Janet Dillon said the association is reviewing the proposal to move to centralized testing, but has yet to decide if it will support it.

Meanwhile, county officials are evaluating a separate proposal to crack down on automobiles that leave the longest trails of pollution.

Under a state law passed last year, Ventura and San Diego counties can join a five-year pilot project that would track those cars that travel and pollute the most.

The plan, as devised by San Diego businessman Alan Uke, would establish a smog index number for every model and year of car. Officials would then set a standard of pollution permissible annually for each car.

Any vehicle that exceeded that standard would have to get checked at a smog station every year, instead of the usual two years. The standard would be set at a level that would snare about 10% of the heaviest polluters.

Uke said the public is unaware that cars produce varying amounts of pollution. By attaching a pollution index to each vehicle, he said, many consumers would choose cleaner-burning cars--particularly if they log a lot of miles.

“We are trying to encourage the people with the highest mileage to buy the lowest polluting cars,” Uke said.

Baldwin said he and his staff members want to figure out how to make the mileage program work before recommending whether the county should join. He expects a decision by this fall.

State officials worry that the mileage plan would encourage owners to tamper with odometers rather than face annual smog checks. And county officials question the fairness of penalizing drivers for miles driven outside the area that did not contribute to the local smog program.

Although the plan has received praise from three other taxpayer groups, self-styled taxpayer advocate Jere Robings said the project seems too intrusive.

“The government is going to know how far we travel,” he said. “Next, they will want to know where we travel--all in the name of clean air.”

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Tougher Smog Tests

Three plans are poised to overhaul Ventura County’s smog-check program, the first major changes in 11 years.

Smog Check II

What: A new hybrid program adopted by state leaders instead of establishment of centralized smog test stations ordered by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.

How It Works: At least 15% of the vehicles, mostly those tagged as “gross polluters,” will have to get smog tests at centralized, inspection-only stations. The remaining 85% can continue to get checked every other year at neighborhood car repair shops with new, more sensitive testing equipment. The state has not detailed which cars will be categorized as gross polluters. But officials expect they will include older cars, those with histories of smog-test problems or those photographed by pollution-detecting sensors set up on local roadways. Also, a 2% random sample of cars will be directed to the inspection-only stations.

When: Depending on negotiations with the EPA, the state could launch the program Jan. 1 or July 1, 1996. The only change so far is that car owners can only obtain a waiver for smog-control equipment repairs after they have spent at least $450.

Where: Ventura County and other smoggy areas in California that violate federal clean air standards.

Arguments For: By targeting only the worst polluting vehicles, the program reduces air pollution without inconveniencing most car owners or stripping local repair shops of their smog-testing business.

Arguments Against: The hybrid plan will not crack down on fraudulent or improper testing at some local repair shops. Nor will it curb automobile emission as effectively as sending all cars to centralized smog stations. And the remote sensors could trigger a consumer backlash if they do not work properly. One study showed that 58% of the cars tagged as gross polluters had no trouble passing regular smog-emission tests.

Centralized Testing

What: Ventura County air pollution control officials seek legislation to allow the county to switch to centralized smog-test stations. If approved, the county would be the first jurisdiction in California to adopt such a program.

How it works: All vehicles would get checked every other year at inspection-only smog stations scattered across the county. These centralized stations would replace the 235 local automobile repair garages that now do smog tests. Private contractors would own and operate the eight test-only stations and be required to make smog checks fast and convenient for motorists. If approved, centralized testing would replace the state’s Smog Check II program, which requires at least 15% of the worst polluting vehicles to go to test-only stations.

When: No start date. The Legislature and governor must first approve the proposal.

Where: Ventura County

Arguments For: Fourteen other states have successfully launched programs with inspection-only stations. Studies show that such centralized testing reduces twice as much automobile pollution as testing at neighborhood repair shops. Test-only stations can perform the tests cheaper because of the volume of cars coming through the system and make it easier for local officials to monitor.

Arguments Against: Motorists may have to drive farther to get tests and could end up repeatedly bouncing between test-only stations and repair shops if their cars fail smog checks. It would hurt business at the 235 gas stations and repair shops countywide that have invested substantial amounts of money in smog-check equipment.

Smog Index

What: A five-year pilot project offered to Ventura County aims at cracking down on high-mileage vehicles that pollute the most.

How it works: All new and used vehicles would be assigned a smog index number, indicating the emissions level of the specific model and year. Multiplying the smog index and annual mileage, the program would establish a standard of pollution permissible each year. Cars exceeding the standard would have to get a smog test yearly. Officials would try to set the standard so that 10% of the county’s automobiles get annual smog checkups. The remaining cars would continue to be tested every other year. The standards would tighten each year until the county cleans up its air.

When: It could begin as early as Jan. 1. But Ventura County air pollution officials have yet to join the pilot program. A decision is expected this fall.

Where: Ventura and San Diego counties.

Arguments For: The project targets only those vehicles that contribute the most pollution and does not inconvenience the majority of motorists. By posting smog index ratings on cars, similar to gas-mileage ratings, consumers can factor in that information when buying a car. To avoid annual smog checkups, high-mileage motorists will want to buy low-emission vehicles.

Arguments Against: The project encourages tampering with odometers and would lift the $450 cost limit on repairs. It makes no allowance for those miles driven out of Ventura County. Some fear it is too intrusive, the first step toward government controlling how many miles each motorist can drive.