Cloud of Crisis for the AQMD

The new chairman of the South Coast Air Quality Management District wants to review the agency’s strategy for curbing air pollution in poor, minority neighborhoods. In addition, William A. Burke, who took the helm of the district’s contentious board last month, has drafted an eight-point initiative aimed partly at increasing, throughout the region, the public’s access to and involvement in the agency’s air pollution programs. Good ideas, but implementation will be no mean trick.

The AQMD is suffering a long-running crisis. Buffeted on the one side by environmentalists who see the agency as retreating from its smog-fighting mission and on the other by business leaders and some lawmakers who regard AQMD rules as unreasonable and costly, the staff has struggled to find stable footing in recent years. Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued an audit that accused the AQMD and other California pollution control districts of failing to adequately penalize businesses that violate smog rules.

Shortly afterward, the state Air Resources Board suspended all the so-called trading programs that gave companies the right to swap pollution credits so each could meet state standards. That decision came in response to a lawsuit claiming that the programs violate the civil rights of people living in low-income, minority communities.

And last week, the agency announced that its voluntary compliance program for gas stations isn’t working; an audit of smog control equipment on gas pumps showed that nearly 40% of stations were violating air quality regulations that ban excessive emissions. This disclosure came the same day that environmental groups filed suit accusing the AQMD of backing away from its legal obligations under the federal Clean Air Act to eliminate unhealthful levels of smog by 2010.

Staff upheavals have added to growing concerns about the agency’s direction. The AQMD board decided last summer not to renew the contract of its long-time executive officer, James Lents, highly regarded for his innovative approach to pollution control. Last month Burke stepped into the job of board chairman, replacing Jon D. Mikels, a Lents supporter. Whether these changes signal a substantive retreat from the agency’s once aggressive battle to cut smog is unclear, but both demonstrate that the AQMD has lost the consensus it once held on how to wage the fight.

At the same time, new federal rules, particularly those identifying ultra-fine airborne particles as a health risk, put this agency and others under pressure to do even more to meet air standards.

Clearly a review of the AQMD’s strategy is in order. But so too is stiffened resolve on the part of board and staff members--as well as local residents--that smog must be cut further. This may be a tough time to get that consensus since the El Nino weather system is helping to produce the cleanest air Southern Californians have experienced in decades. But in the smog wars, El Nino’s clean air is likely to be just the calm before the storm.