A Clearer Vision of the Future : In the air quality countdown to 2010, cleanup measures are paying off and the end of smog problems may be in sight. : Next L.A. / A look at issues, people and ideas helping to shape the emerging metropolis.

L.A. Times Archives

Aug. 8, 1995 12 AM PT

Back in the 1960s, everybody was searching for the smog quick fix. Gigantic fans installed in mountain passes was a favorite idea. Vacuuming the sky was another.

Today, the dream of achieving clean air in the nation’s smog capital no longer seems so far-fetched. Finally, after filling shelves with regulations on cars, factories and even back-yard barbecues, the end is in sight in the war against Los Angeles smog.

Not that victory is assured, but already episodes of unhealthful air have fallen dramatically, and skies that meet all pollution standards are predicted in most of our lifetimes--by 2010. A child born today in the San Gabriel Valley could spend her teen-age years breathing air deemed healthful, and smog alerts would become a whimsical bit of history.

No one anymore expects foul air to blow out of Los Angeles via some giant piece of hardware. In the fight to clean up the air, fantastic ideas have been replaced with businesslike pragmatism.

Instead, it takes a slow, deliberate, far-flung process, marked by incremental technologies and changes that often pass unnoticed by residents.

Smog control circa 2000 will mean things like nickel-metal-hydride car batteries, diesel catalysts and citrus-based solvents. They’re not sexy, but they seem to work.

Many observers believe the Los Angeles Basin’s clean-air plan for the next 15 years may overreach in forcing the use of new technologies, and it faces severe political and economic obstacles.

But if the national Clean Air Act prevails and the plan succeeds, the summer of 2010 will be the first in almost three-quarters of a century in which the Southland will emerge from under the specter of world-class smog.

It was the summer of 1943 when a mysterious, eye-stinging gas descended on Los Angeles.

Unlike the sulfurous smoke in industrial cities of the East, this was no black cloud hovering over a factory. It was an omnipresent shroud that tinged the region’s air a sickly whiskey-brown. The Times dubbed the episodes “gas attacks.”

It took until 1950--when a Caltech scientist re-created the gas in a test tube--for the main ingredient to be identified as ozone, a caustic blend of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides.

For the first time, petroleum and motor vehicles were incriminated. With that, the immensity of the challenge began to dawn on Californians, and government issued the first of hundreds of rules aimed at improving air quality.

In the 1960s, a fierce debate raged over the need for electric-powered cars. Adamantly opposed, the auto and oil industries began tinkering with the internal combustion engine. By the mid-1970s, California had mandated basic hardware--catalytic converters on cars and vapor recovery nozzles at service stations--that made tremendous leaps in pollution control.

After an effective start, though, anti-smog efforts lapsed. In the 1980s, the Southland missed two deadlines set by Congress for attaining the ozone health standard. The common wisdom was that clean air would forever remain an elusive dream in the Los Angeles area.

The tide turned in the late 1980s. For the first time, the South Coast Air Quality Management District mapped a specific course toward attaining the ozone standard, the most challenging air pollution limit.

The ambitious 1989 plan promised blue skies and new lifestyles, from a push to discourage solo commuting to new mass-produced electric cars and fume-free back-yard barbecues. A full-scale assault on emissions from local factories and power plants was waged.

“Previous to that, the district had always looked only at technology that was readily available or almost perfected,” said AQMD spokesman Bill Kelly, “not the dramatic technology-forcing measures included in the 1989 plan, such as electric vehicles or widespread alternative fuels.”

Potent forces had turned the pessimistic mind-set into a new resolve: The Legislature passed a tough clean-air law and strengthened the AQMD, new aggressive leadership took control of the agency and environmentalists filed a federal lawsuit over the region’s bad air.

Also, in 1990 Congress and President George Bush bolstered the Clean Air Act with strict deadlines and harsh sanctions.

The countdown had officially begun: The L.A. region had until 2010 to clean up its air.

Despite the recession, which caused some businesses to dig in their heels against aggressive new rules, the push toward 2010 seems on target.

Last fall, a new bipartisan smog plan was drafted by the AQMD and the Wilson Administration’s Air Resources Board. Like the 1989 plan, it includes stringent vehicle emission standards, but pairs them with a program that lets industries use market forces--the buying and selling of smog “credits”--to cut their air pollution.

By state mandate, 2% of cars sold in California by major manufacturers beginning in 1998 must be exhaust-free--essentially, electric-powered. By 2003, at least 10% must comply. Another campaign targets diesel engines.

Although the region has grown by 4 million people, ozone today never reaches concentrations as severe as two decades ago. Health violations in the four-county area declined almost 50% between 1976 and 1994.

Nevertheless, with its pollution-trapping topography and climate and its affinity for motor vehicles, the region still exceeds the national health standard far more often than anyplace else.

Air quality officials predict that smog alerts will vanish around the turn of the century and that all standards--for ozone, particulate matter, carbon monoxide--will be satisfied by 2010. That means today’s emissions must be slashed 75% more while the population grows by a projected 4 million.

“I think the AQMD’s optimism is sustainable,” said Ron Lamb, vice president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. “‘We’re making such positive moves in the business community . . . that I wouldn’t be surprised if their projections are correct.”

Environmentalists remain skeptical. Clean-air advocates contend that the plan will not be aggressive enough to attain health standards, especially because it does not require such moves as alternative fuels in trucks and buses. Also, the mandate of 10% electric car sales by 2003 depends on breakthroughs in the invention of economical, sophisticated batteries.

Even if the dreams come true, Caribbean-style blue skies will remain elusive. After all, Native Americans centuries ago had their own name for Los Angeles: the Bay of Smokes.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The War on Smog The Los Angeles basin, the nation’s undisputed smog capital, may at last be within sight of winning its long battle against air pollution. Thanks to numerous technological advances and hundreds of anti-smog regulations--with more to come--air that meets health standards is expected to be achieved throughout the four-county region by 2010. Here is a look at the Southland’s 50-year assault on smog. *

Milestones in the Southland’s battle against smog:

* 1943 Times reports mysterious, eye-stinging “gas attacks” in L.A.

* 1950 Scientist recreates the gas in test tube, identifies it as ozone, alias smog.

* 1953 Gov. Goodwin Knight forms committee on smog.

* 1958 Back-yard burning of trash is banned.

* 1961 First pollution controls appear on cars.

* 1970 State begins to regulate vehicle emissions.

* 1975 Catalytic converters required on California cars.

* 1977 South Coast Air Quality Management District created.

* 1979 Vapor recovery nozzles required at service stations.

* 1981 Number of Stage 1 smog alerts for year falls under 100.

* 1987 Employers required to set up ride-share programs.