EPA Sued Over Clean-Air Rule Exemptions

Conflict over air quality in the smoggy San Joaquin Valley erupted anew this week as clean-air advocates filed a lawsuit accusing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of exempting major agricultural polluters from a new dust-control requirement.

It is the sixth lawsuit in the past few years against air-quality agencies that have fallen far behind federally mandated clean-air goals for the valley. Meanwhile, a pall of brown haze shrouds the valley much of the year, which health experts say heightens the risk of respiratory damage for the area’s 3.4 million residents.

Filed by a coalition of health and environmental advocates, the latest suit centers on a measure to reduce dust from unpaved roads, vacant lots, construction sites, building materials and tilled fields. Agricultural sources are exempt from the dust abatement requirements, although farming and related operations account for nearly two-thirds of all dust and smoke.

Federal air-quality officials acknowledge that they approved the measure Jan. 22 hoping they could strengthen it later. EPA officials also acknowledge that the regulation was developed with direct involvement of members of the Bush administration in Washington, D.C., after farm lobbyists sought relief from what they regarded as a costly and burdensome regulation.

The San Joaquin Valley is one of the smoggiest places in the United States. Last summer, there were virtually no days of good air quality.

Microscopic particles of dust and smoke blot out the sun, obscure mountain views and contribute to the incidences of asthma and cancer. These particles in valley air increased 17% in the past three years.

The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District developed an anti-dust plan three years ago, but the EPA initially rejected it as too lenient. A new regulation was developed, crafted by industry groups and EPA officials in Washington and San Francisco. It was approved by the local air district in November 2001.

Although the regulation is expected to cut particle pollution by 7 tons -- only 3% of the total -- the EPA exempted all on-field agricultural sources, including combines and tractors, animal feeding operations, and farms smaller than 320 acres.

Furthermore, the EPA did not require “best available” control measures or even “reasonably available” control measures, many of which have been in effect in the Coachella Valley and around Phoenix for many years.

“The approved plan was a sweetheart deal written behind closed doors by industry and EPA as a way to avoid the cutoff of federal highway funding and to duck EPA’s obligation to prepare its own cleanup plan,” said Mike Sherwood, a staff attorney for Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

The suit, filed Wednesday, asks the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to review the EPA’s actions.

Officials at the California Farm Bureau and the Nisei Farmers League in Fresno did not respond to requests for interviews on the matter.

The suit is the latest to be brought by a coalition of physicians, environmentalists and Latino community leaders against air-quality agencies. Recently, they have sued to overturn an exemption by the Legislature for agricultural pollution and an exemption for the oil industry in the south end of the San Joaquin Valley. They also have sued to enforce six smog-cutting measures in the valley.

EPA officials, meanwhile, say the lawsuits are slowing their efforts to achieve clean air.

“It’s time for the environmentalists to stop going to court on all these lawsuits. We want to sit down and talk about these control measures and stop tying up our resources defending lawsuits,” said Jack Broadbent, director of the EPA’s air programs in California and the Southwest.

But clean-air advocates say they will stop suing when government regulators get tough on air pollution. They argue that air-quality officials have missed every cleanup deadline set by the federal Clean Air Act since 1991, and that they have failed to produce a viable plan to cut smog and haze in the valley.

The advocates point out that the Valley Air District has asked the EPA to designate the valley as one of only two “extreme” smog centers in the nation.

“In the perfect world, we would snap our fingers and the valley would have attainment [of clean air],” said Josette Merced Bello, spokeswoman for the valley air district.

“Identifying reasonable ways to control these emissions has been a challenge,” she added. “How do you reasonably control dust from tilling? How do you do that without putting agriculture out of business?”