EPA may adopt California air standard

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Monday, August 27, 2007 12:24 AM PDT ∞

California's smog benchmark is tougher than the nation's. But it is often ignored because the state can't take away billions of dollars in highway money like the federal government can, if regions fail to clean up the air, experts say.

That may be about to change.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed to ratchet down its limit for ozone, Southern California's most prevalent air pollutant, to either match the state's threshold or come close to it.

"They're playing catch-up with California," said Debra Kelley, Southern California advocacy director for the San Diego office of the American Lung Association, which backs the move to tighten the screws on the nation's smog.

The EPA has planned five public hearings around the country the next couple weeks, including one in Los Angeles on Thursday. The agency proposes to make a decision by March 12, 2008.

Dale Kemery, an EPA spokesman in Washington, said by e-mail the agency expects to determine in 2010 which metropolitan areas meet the new federal standard and which don't. Kemery said offending urban regions would be given deadlines ranging between 2013 and 2030 to reach the new target.

"We can't specify attainment dates for specific areas," Kemery said. "But areas with the most severe problems get the longest time to meet standards."

The South Coast air basin, which takes in Riverside, Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, is notorious for having one of the nation's most severe smog problems. It already is having a rough time meeting the existing limit, with compliance not anticipated until 2024. Now it could take even longer to reach the elusive dream of clean air.

San Diego County is doing a little better in the smog department.

"We're within striking distance," said Rob Reider, planning manager for the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District, which regulates stationary pollution sources such as power plants and factories. "We're a year or two away from hopefully reaching that (existing federal) standard."

However, if the EPA adopts California's standard as its own, it could take the San Diego region a decade or more.

The toxic brew

Ozone, the primary component of smog, is an invisible but pungent and poisonous gas. Ozone tends to form when hydrocarbons and nitrogen-oxides belched by the huge concentration of cars and factories along the coast blow inland and cook in the hot valley sun to form a toxic brew.

Bryan Brendle, energy resources policy director for the National Association of Manufacturers, a Washington-based group that represents the nation's 11,000 manufacturing firms, said by telephone last week it would be unfair to change the rules now, just as regions are beginning to approach the goal.

"This is like moving the goal posts during the ball game," Brendle said. "The current standard is working. Ozone concentrations are dropping."

The national business group, which warns that the rule would eliminate millions of manufacturing jobs, is urging EPA to leave the current limit intact. Already, Brendle said, the nation has lost 3 million such jobs -- going from 17 million to 14 million -- since the turn of the century.

"A stricter ozone standard will exacerbate that trend. There is just no doubt," he said.

However, with likely generous deadlines for meeting a new target, James Lents of Diamond Bar, former head of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, disputed the notion that the economy would be harmed.

And with the health stakes so high, Lents said the federal government has no business basing a standard on difficulty.

"Citizens deserve to know if their air is healthy or not," Lents said. "It's like lying to the public to maintain a non-health-protective standard just because it is hard to get to."

Giving lip service

State and regional air quality officials said they generally back the federal proposal, although they have yet to deliver official comments.

"We would support that effort, so that it protects more people and so that we have fewer deaths throughout the United States," said California Air Resources Board spokesman Dimitri Stanich in Sacramento.

Numerous scientific studies have linked high smog levels to aggravated health problems for children and the elderly, and people suffering from lung and heart ailments. Studies also suggest pollution causes premature death.

Lents said the EPA proposal would have the practical effect of spurring serious efforts to meet the targets California has had for years.

"The state standards, in my opinion, aren't adequately enforced," he said. "They are only giving lip service to them. You rarely hear people seriously consider the state's standards."

California's smog rules call for ozone concentrations to reach no higher than 70 parts per billion, as averaged over an eight-hour period. The federal threshold is 84 parts per billion.

On June 22, the EPA proposed ratcheting down the federal limit to either 70 parts per billion or 75 parts per billion.

In a recent report, the EPA stated: "We now conclude that the overall body of evidence clearly calls into question the adequacy of the current standard in protecting sensitive groups, notably asthmatic children and other people with lung disease, as well as children and older adults."

The report said studies have demonstrated smog can damage lungs at concentrations as low as 60 parts per billion.

Brendle, of the manufacturing group, suggested it was inappropriate for the EPA to propose lowering the standard in advance of hearings scheduled as part of an annual five-review of its smog rules.

"We believe that such a blatant policy preference is unnecessary, and that it is not founded on the existing scientific data on the various alleged health impacts of current ozone exposure," he said.

Something to chew on

David Gemmill of Temecula, who retired earlier this month from his job as an air quality scientist at UC Riverside, disagreed.

"I'd rather have the EPA put something on the table so that people can chew on it a little bit," Gemmill said.

If the 70-parts-per-billion proposal on the table is adopted, Riverside and San Diego counties would find their skies in violation of federal smog laws much more often than now.

For instance, the South Coast basin that takes in western Riverside County has logged 70 bad air days so far this year -- as of Thursday -- under the existing EPA standard, said Tina Cherry, South Coast district spokeswoman. If the proposed limit were in place today, violations would total 105 -- and counting.

San Diego County, by comparison, has logged just five violations so far, said Carl Selnick, the county's air quality specialist. But the number of bad air days would already have reached 34 under the proposed rule, he said.

The totals don't, however, reflect how many days the air is bad in, say, Temecula or Oceanside. That's because a violation is recorded whenever any one air monitor in an entire air basin exceeds the limit. That tends to happen most often at Alpine in San Diego County, and in the urban area lying directly east of Los Angeles in the South Coast basin. Still, limits would be exceeded more often in Escondido, for example, under the change.

Besides the impact on overall numbers, Reider, of the San Diego district, said the change could also affect the time of the year air quality is considered poor.

"In the early 1990s, it used to be that we could get an ozone (violation) at almost any time of the year," Reider said. "But today, ozone is only a summer problem. If EPA tightens the standard, we might get back to having violations outside of the summer season."

On Aug. 2, the EPA estimated the new rule would curb premature deaths caused by smog by 1,100 to 1,400 per year nationwide.

The report also said the tougher standard could prevent, in the year 2020, 9,400 to 16,000 cases of aggravated asthma, 1,400 to 2,300 nonfatal heart attacks, and 675,000 to 890,000 occasions when people miss work or school.

The regional hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday at the Garden West Room, Wilshire Grand Los Angeles, 930 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90017.

For information, go to www.epa.gov/groundlevelozone/pdfs/20070620_fs.pdf.

-- Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@californian.