Central Valley Looking for Ways to Fight Air Pollution

With stubborn air pollution gripping the rural reaches of California’s Central Valley, authorities launched a $44.5-million initiative Monday to find ways to defeat smog in the state’s agricultural heartland.

Even as Los Angeles and other pollution-plagued spots have made headway in recent years, the Central Valley has lagged behind in efforts to improve air quality.

A coalition of government agencies and businesses hopes that two ambitious studies of the valley’s nagging smog problems will help chart a course to dramatically improve air quality--and avoid federal sanctions if health standards aren’t met by 2005.

“There’s still a lot we need to find out before we can put in effective pollution controls,” said Josette Merced Bello, spokeswoman for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. “We’ll be getting down to the gnat’s eyebrows with this.”

To collect air samples over the coming months, scientists will deploy a pair of planes and roll out a 30-foot, remote-controlled blimp during foul weather. They’ll also erect a 328-foot tower in a corner of Kings County to scoop up samples from the sky.

Nearly half the cost of the studies, about $21 million, will be borne by the federal government. The state will pay $10 million and local governments will contribute $9 million. Private industry will pick up the rest of the cost.

Among the questions scientists want to answer is how pollution swirls around the valley and where, exactly, it comes from. Valley residents have long blamed pollution problems in part on smog blown in from the Bay Area, much as Los Angeles gets fingered for Inland Empire air problems.

Though the Southland remains among the smoggiest areas in the country, the Central Valley is catching up. Of the nation’s 20 most polluted spots, seven are in the Central Valley, including Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced and Sacramento.

Authorities say the new air quality studies are needed because the sort of wide-ranging approach adopted in Southern California--cleaning up everything from gasoline to lawn mowers--hasn’t worked as well in Central California.

“As air districts go, we’re finding one size doesn’t fit all,” said Cathy Reheis of the Western State Petroleum Assn., which is contributing $700,000 toward the study. “If you don’t have good science, you end up controlling everything everywhere, and that doesn’t make good sense.”

Business leaders like Reheis have jumped aboard the Central California Air Quality Coalition, which is sponsoring the studies, out of a bottom-line desire to ensure that regulators focus on only the worst polluters, avoiding blanket regulations that could affect all industries.

Environmental groups also support the effort.

“We’re pleased there’s going to be an in-depth study,” said Kevin Finney of the Coalition for Clean Air. “We know it’s a very serious problem.”

Air pollution has been a problem in the Central Valley for decades. In recent years, pollution readings have improved a bit, but not enough to satisfy federal regulators. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is soon expected to downgrade the region’s air quality rating from serious to severe.

Suburbs are spreading fast throughout the Central Valley, an area long dominated by agribusiness. The region has 3.2 million cars pumping out pollutants. Add to that a parade of diesel trucks and farm equipment, plus smoke from agricultural burning, power plants, oil production and other industries.

The stew mixes in the valley’s walled-in topography, with the Sierra Nevada, the Coastal Range and the Tehachapi Mountains forming a sort of gigantic bathtub. Generally docile winds and blistering heat combine to create the perfect oven for ozone during summer months. In the winter, the region records soaring levels of particulates--the microscopic soot from fires, diesel engines and other pollution sources.

Those particles can cause respiratory problems such as bronchitis and also have been recently linked by researchers to heart attacks in some people with existing cardiac problems. The valley’s conditions are particularly dangerous for children, the elderly and adults who exercise outside.

The federal government threatens to cut highway construction money in the valley, potentially costing the fast-growing region billions of dollars, if pollution levels do not fall below health standards within five years.

“We’re going to have to get very creative in the valley,” Reheis said. “We’re such a huge area, surrounded by mountains, with exploding population, businesses that want to grow. You put all that together and it is going to be a challenge.”