Smog Fight Is Just Beginning

There’s plenty of room to quibble with a federal study released last week by a clean-air advocacy group, which suggests that Ventura County residents are at higher than normal risk of developing cancer because of toxic air pollution. The report is based on 9-year-old figures--figures taken from computer modeling rather than actual air sampling, at that.

Nonetheless, this study reinforces a point that common sense and decades of other research have made clear: Exposure to toxic chemicals adds up. Although we can debate how much of any one toxin is “safe,” taking reasonable steps to reduce exposure wherever we can is simply good public policy and healthy personal practice.

That’s why we are troubled by the crusade of Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) to abolish vehicle license fees, and a similar drive by Assemblyman Tony Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks) to reduce the gasoline tax. Sure, both of those measures are politically popular--who doesn’t want lower taxes? But they encourage more people to buy more cars and drive them more miles. Both assemblymen’s support of building more roads while opposing such pollution-limiting strategies as carpool lanes and mass transit merely push us toward air quality that grows worse as the population rises. About 80% of the cancer-causing contaminants in Southern California’s air comes from vehicles. California has been a leader in forcing the auto industry to produce cleaner cars. The measures proposed by McClintock and Strickland would undermine the progress we are making.

Reducing cumulative exposure is a battle with many fronts. Farmers are under constant pressure to find less-toxic pesticides and fertilizers and to use less of them. Caltrans should stop spraying the roadsides with herbicides that seem to do little but turn green weeds into brown ones.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is phasing out toxic pesticides and adopting a so-called least-toxic approach; many of Ventura County’s dozens of school districts are doing the same. This is important both because it reduces the exposure of vulnerable children and because it teaches them a healthy habit.

Homeowners should be similarly conscious of the poisons they spray to perfect their lawns or combat household insects. By themselves, each of these products may be safe. But we live in a world where exposure adds up. The things we eat, drink, smoke, breathe and wear all go into the equation, counterbalanced only by the vigor of our immune systems.

Should this latest report from the Environmental Defense Fund, with its scary assertion that air throughout Ventura County contained enough chemicals to boost the risk of contracting cancer 310 times above federal Clean Air Act goals, send us on a stampede for gas masks? Not at all. But it should remind us that efforts to eliminate smog have only begun. It is up to all of us--government, corporation, family, individual--to continue the fight.