County on Track to Meet U.S. Deadline to Cut Air Pollution

Skies over Ventura County were remarkably smog-free this year as officials reported one of the cleanest years on record.

With the summer smog season long over, the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District announced recently that only one day of unhealthful air pollution occurred this year. That happened on Sept. 24 in Ojai, when ozone reached a peak concentration of 132 parts per billion, 10% higher than the federal health limit.

For the county, it signals that a decades-long fight for clean air is making dramatic progress.

Indeed, the county appears to have met one key federal air quality benchmark, the one-hour ozone standard, which prohibits more than 120 ppb of ozone in any one-hour period at any location in the county.

“We continue to see improvements in our air quality,” said Michael Villegas, the county’s air pollution control officer. “We’ve gone from 122 days [exceeding] the federal ozone standard in 1974 to only one this year.”

That means Ventura County, once one of the smoggiest counties in the nation, is on schedule to achieve healthful air by November 2005, the deadline established under the federal Clean Air Act.

Villegas said that while the county technically already meets that cleanup standard, he wants to see a couple more years of low smog before he asks the EPA to classify the county as an “attainment” area.

Ozone is fickle, fluctuating greatly from year to year depending on weather. While ozone high in the atmosphere protects the Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation, near the surface it is a powerful lung irritant and the main ingredient in smog. It can cause headaches, coughing and dizziness, and long-term exposure can lead to permanent loss of lung function.

Despite the progress, the county continues to violate other smog standards designed to protect people’s health.

For example, the county violated the more stringent California smog standard 23 days this year, mostly in Simi Valley and Ojai. Smog collects in those cities because emissions generated along the coast are blown inland by sea breezes.

Officials say additional cleanup measures are planned in coming years to move the county into compliance with the higher standards.