Smog Inspectors Decry AQMD’s New Approach

Signaling a lack of confidence in their own agency, more than 95% of smog inspectors who cast union-organized ballots lambasted the South Coast Air Quality Management District for scaling back its efforts to combat pollution, labor leaders said Thursday.

Nearly half of the AQMD’s 750 employees were asked whether they agree with a long litany of criticisms--from lax inspections of industrial polluters to a weakened new clean air plan--outlined by the agency’s independent scientific advisors who resigned en masse last month.

Of 111 inspectors at the AQMD, 96 voted and all but four agreed with the criticisms, said Raymond Whitmer, secretary/treasurer of Teamsters Local 911, which represents about 360 AQMD employees. Some 250 technical and clerical workers were issued the same union ballots, but the results had not been fully tabulated Thursday.

For the past two years, many staffers have quietly complained that the AQMD board and its top executives have dramatically weakened their efforts to achieve the federally mandated mission of healthful air in the Los Angeles Basin. But the balloting, which began last week and ended Thursday, is the first public stance taken by inspectors. The results will be brought before the AQMD board at its monthly meeting today.

AQMD Communications Director Tom Eichhorn, representing the agency’s management, said many of the concerns of the scientific advisors and the union employees were “clearly in error and ill-informed.” The agency’s executives say their aim is to achieve air quality deemed healthful by federal law while minimizing the threat to the economy.

Eichhorn said the balloting seems like a union ploy aimed at furthering ongoing negotiations.

“It could be completely altruistic with sincere concerns that we’re not being aggressive enough in cleaning the air, but it’s issued on Teamsters letterhead and signed by the Teamsters’ labor negotiating team leader,” Eichhorn said. “It was not a spontaneous act by the employees.”

Whitmer, however, said the ballot was initiated by the inspectors--whose main job is to enforce dozens of anti-smog regulations--because they wanted to take a stance on growing concerns that the AQMD is not protecting the public from air pollution.

“It was over 20 to 1 in agreement with the concerns,” Whitmer said.

One inspector who asked to remain unidentified told The Times that the vote “absolutely is not a negotiating tactic.” Instead, he said, it reflects the concerns about a steep decline in the numbers of inspections of industrial polluters and the penalties imposed on violators.

“These are long-term dedicated employees who feel that we’re in danger of no longer getting the air-quality benefits from rules that are on the books,” the inspector said. “For political expedience they are cutting down on future rule making, they are cutting down on current enforcement, and we’re exposing the public to increased risks.”

In their vote, the AQMD employees overwhelmingly agreed with a letter by the scientific advisors that says the agency “is embarked on a course that will not lead to attainment” of health standards for the region’s 13 million residents.

Included were concerns over the AQMD’s “lack of coherent rule making since 1994” as well as “an absence of enforcement of rule violations over the past 18 months” and “the absence of concerted rule making” in the staff’s newly proposed clean-air plan.

“The fact that we got such a high turnout on the balloting shows without question the inspectors are concerned about the lack of enforcement,” Whitmer said.

Due to its staffing cutback and pressure to ease up on small businesses, the AQMD has scaled back its inspections and fines and instead stresses education to get companies to comply with pollution rules.

Eichhorn defended the reduced enforcement, saying the AQMD is “working with small business instead of issuing tickets.”

He said the inspectors’ dissatisfaction could reflect a more personal concern. Management has said it wants to scale back the inspectors’ authority to take AQMD cars home.

Whitmer said “no hard bargaining” has begun, although he acknowledged that the employees are worried about planned staff reductions. Job security has been a major concern at the agency, which has reduced its staff more than 38% through layoffs and attrition since 1994.

About 400 AQMD professional and executive employees, including planners and engineers who worked on the new clean-air plan, are not represented by the Teamsters and were not included in the balloting.