Smog Held in Check in Ventura County

Despite fluctuating weather conditions that included stagnant air and light winds last summer, Ventura County skies were mostly smog-free in 2003 and remained on track to meet federal clean-air standards by 2005.

Only two days of unhealthful air pollution occurred last year, one in Ojai and the other in Simi Valley, according to Ventura County Air Pollution Control District officials. The smog season runs from May through October.

The low smog levels allowed the county to meet a key federal air-quality benchmark, the standard that prohibits more than 0.12 parts per million of ozone in the air for any one-hour period.

To reach the federal “attainment” level for ozone, air quality must not exceed the one-hour ozone standard more than three times in three consecutive years. With only two violations in 2003 and one in 2002, the county is on track to meet its goal, officials said.

“Since the early 1970s, when we averaged 122 bad air days, our air quality has improved to such a degree that we’ve only experienced one or two [unhealthful] days each year for the past several years,” said Michael Villegas, air pollution control officer.

“That’s healthy news for Ventura County residents.”

If the trend continues, 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.

Despite the progress, the county continued to violate other smog standards.

The county exceeded the more stringent California smog standard -- which prohibits more than 0.09 parts per million of ozone in the air in any one-hour period -- 41 times last year in Simi Valley, Piru, Ojai and Thousand Oaks.