Ventura County Had Few Smog Days This Year

Ventura County experienced another year of mostly clear skies in 2001, exceeding a key federal ozone standard on only two days.

“We are seeing long-term, significant improvement in our air quality,” said Doug Tubbs, manager of the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District’s Monitoring and Technical Services division.

The drop in high-smog days, from a 1974 peak of 122, comes even as the county’s population has doubled since monitoring for smog and its hazardous ozone component began in 1973.

However, the two days of heavy smog also mean Ventura County--still ranked as one of the most polluted areas in the nation--is at least one more year away from complying with the standard.

For that to happen, air quality in the county must not exceed the one-hour ozone standard more than three times in three consecutive years, officials said. This year’s two-day violation period brings the total to five since 1999.

“If you look at the history of this thing, we’re so close it’s painful,” Tubbs said.

It will be difficult to do away with high-smog days in 2002 because unknown weather factors can cause ozone production to fluctuate drastically, Tubbs said.

But officials said the county is making progress toward the Environmental Protection Agency’s November 2005 deadline for complying with the one-hour standard.

“We’re not in violation of any laws right now, and we’re on track to meet that deadline,” said Richard Baldwin, executive officer of the air district. “We’re in good shape.”

The two violations of the one-hour standard this year occurred during hot summer days in Simi Valley--the county’s smog hot spot.

Ozone, which makes up about 95% of Southern California’s smog, is created when hydrocarbons from vehicle emissions and other pollutants from stationary sources react with sunlight. It can cause respiratory problems and lung damage.

Exceeding the one-hour federal ozone standard--the least stringent of three goals for the pollutant--means that for at least 60 minutes on a given day, ozone concentrations average more than 0.12 parts per million. Levels that high can be detrimental to health, particularly in children or people with asthma, officials said.

Ventura County also monitors the more stringent one-hour state standard and the federal eight-hour standard for ozone, Baldwin said.

The state standard of 0.09 parts per million was exceeded on 34 days this year, down from 37 last year. The federal eight-hour standard, in which ozone levels average 0.08 parts per million over an eight-hour period, was topped on 23 days, down from 29 in 2000.

The eight-hour federal standard, details on which the EPA is still working out after court challenges, is intended to protect people living and working in lower levels of ozone but facing constant exposure to the pollutant.

Baldwin said the state standard, which is the most stringent of the three, is the “driving force” behind the air district’s effort to reduce smog in Ventura County. There is no set deadline, but officials must come into compliance as soon as possible.

There was also good news in the annual report.

Data collected over the past three years show that the county is likely in compliance with a new federal standard for fine particulate pollution, Tubbs said. The microscopic particles, formed from the same pollutants that generate ozone, have been proven to cause premature death at elevated levels.

Baldwin said the news is a relief for the county’s business community, because it means the air district will not have to impose new controls to meet the standard.