State Ready to OK Plan to Cut Smog

State officials are poised to approve a new master plan for combating smog across Southern California, even though they concede that the strategy probably falls short of what would be needed to achieve clean air.

The plan comes at a time when Los Angeles’ half-century fight against air pollution has taken a turn for the worse. After 30 years of dramatic gains, progress appears to have stalled. The number of smoggy days is down about 70% compared with 1976, when the regional South Coast Air Quality Management District was formed, but during the last five years, air quality has shown little improvement. This summer, the region experienced its smoggiest season in six years.

“We’ve had years of continued progress and now we’ve got a reminder that we’ve got to be ever more vigilant and we have to do more to protect public health,” said Alan C. Lloyd, chairman of the state Air Resources Board.

Despite efforts over the past week to bolster the plan, air quality officials say they have not been able to identify enough ways to cut smog to get the air in the entire Los Angeles Basin clean enough to meet federal health standards. The gap between what is needed and what is possible with current technology is a whopping 450 tons of smog-forming emissions each day, state officials say.

That gloomy forecast received additional support Wednesday from scientists at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment, who warned that even if all goes well, the proposed clean-air plan will probably be sufficient only to keep pace with growth for a few more years.

Without major advances in technology, innovative strategies and less urban sprawl, the smog generated by continued growth of the region’s population could overtake the area’s smog-control program within a few years, the report said.

“The air was getting much cleaner up until ‘98, and it’s ground to a screeching halt in the last five years. We are in a stall,” said Suzanne Paulson, atmospheric scientist at UCLA.

“It doesn’t look so great for the future for getting cleaner still,” she said, adding that the proposed new control plan “will make the air a little bit cleaner, but there are nowhere near enough controls to realistically meet the air quality standard by the deadline.”

Regional air quality officials and environmental groups say much of the problem is that state and federal officials have not been aggressive enough in combating sources of pollution they regulate.

“It is our firm belief that the current draft plan falls short of what is technologically feasible and cost-effective,” said Barry Wallerstein, executive officer for the regional air quality district. “The easy rule-makings have already been done.... The work ahead is tough, but it’s necessary.”

The continued shortfall is a concern for some business leaders. Factories, refineries and other large industrial facilities in Southern California -- all regulated by the air quality district -- have spent millions of dollars to reduce emissions. Representatives of those industries fear they could be squeezed further if the state and federal governments fail to require aggressive cleanup efforts from other sources of pollution, including consumer products and diesel-powered trucks, ships’ forklifts and construction equipment, which collectively account for 80% of the region’s current smog.

“The next level of pollution control will require some political will to do things that have not been done yet,” said Bob Wyman, an attorney representing the Regulatory Flexibility Group, which includes Northrop Grumman, Chevron, Texaco, Reliant Energy, Irvine Co. and Toyota.

As written, the anti-smog plan contains over 50 control measures, including new smog-check requirements for cars, controls on pleasure boats and requirements for solvent-free paints and coatings.

Environmentalists plan to ask the state air board to add more pollution-control measures to the smog-fighting plan. “If they approve the plan and don’t make changes, we are doomed to dirty air,” said Gail Ruderman Feuer, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Among the changes environmentalists seek are a ban on old, polluting personal water craft; a requirement that owners of old cars retrofit them with modern pollution control devices; regulations to put catalysts and soot traps on old diesel trucks and buses; and tighter controls on machines used at the ports.

The air quality district has asked state officials to order controls on ships idling in ports at San Pedro and Long Beach.

Others are calling for using infrared technologies to spot the dirtiest cars and require owners to clean them up. Wyman said new labeling requirements might be needed to inform consumers about high-polluting products, such as hair spay, that they purchase. Others urge the government to provide subsidies that businesses and farmers can use to replace polluting equipment with cleaner machines.

“There are clearly things that can be done. The plan needs more measures and those measure are going to require us to be a little more creative,” said V. John White, a Sierra Club lobbyist.

The current deadline in federal law for the region to clean up its air is 2010. If the air does not meet all federal health standards by then, the federal government could impose economic sanctions, including restrictions on business expansion and loss of billions of dollars in federal highway funds.

The main pollutant at issue is ozone, a colorless, toxic gas that is highly corrosive to rubber, metals and lung tissue. Short-term exposure causes headaches, dizziness and nausea; long-term exposure scars lungs, making them less elastic and efficient. Ozone worsens asthma, increases school absences and emergency room visits, and reduces the lung capacity of young children living in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, health studies have shown.

The original version of the clean-air plan was crafted and approved earlier this year by the air quality district. But the plan does not become law until it is approved by the state air board. A public hearing on the matter is scheduled today in Diamond Bar before the 11-member state air board.