Date sent: Wed, 23 Dec 1998 11:59:23 -0500 (EST)
From: [email protected]
Subject: Agencies say smog on rise in Bay Area
To: [email protected]
This was forwarded to you by Denny. It first appeared in Hot CoCo,
http://www.hotcoco.com/, the online edition of the Contra Costa Times.
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Comments from Denny:
SMOGGIER AIR FOR BAY AREA BLAMED ON LAX REFINERY REGS
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Published on December 23, 1998
Agencies say smog on rise in Bay Area
-- Air district says federal standards violated on eight days in '98,
calls hot weather the cause; some think growth leading to problems
BY DENIS CUFF
After 25 years of progress in the war on smog, the Bay Area has breathed
dirtier air three of the past four summers -- a possible sign that the
region is having trouble keeping with burgeoning growth.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District reported Tuesday that the
air exceeded the federal health standard for smog eight days this year.
There were also eight dirty air days in 1996 and 11 in 1995.
Early in the decade, the region was averaging three or fewer dirty air
days per year.
Air district managers put most of the blame for the increase on unusually
hot, stagnant air that speeds up the conversion of auto and factory
exhaust into eye- and lung-stinging smog.
Even though we had these excesses ... we continue to believe that our
emissions are going down and will continue to do so, said Ellen Garvey,
the air district's chief executive. The warmer the weather, the higher
the potential for smog.
But a district staff report issued in October 1997 suggested that growth,
traffic congestion and ineffective nozzles at gas station pumps may be
pumping out more pollution than anticipated.
During the 1990s progress appears to have lapsed; there appears to have
been an increase in ozone potential, after accounting for meteorology,
wrote district planners.
Tom Perardi, the air district's planning chief, appeared to back off that
report Tuesday, saying computer models show that cars and factories are
putting increasingly less pollution into the air.
Federal air regulators, however, said this summer's smoggy air
strengthens their contention that the Bay Area has significant pollution
problems.
We think three out four years indicates a problem, said Deborah Jordan,
the Environmental Protection Agency's associate director of the air
division in San Francisco. We believe the Bay Area has a significant
problem particularly affecting children and the elderly.
Smog, or photochemical ozone, irritates the lungs and eyes and aggravates
asthma or other breathing problems.
Environmentalists said Tuesday they also believe pollution sources have
increased.
There is more pollution going in the air, said Denny Larson, Northern
California campaign director for Communities for a Better Environment, a
statewide group based in San Francisco.
He added that hard economic times prompted the air district to back off
its drive for new industrial regulatory measures in the early 1990s, and
consumers are now paying the price.
Air district planners acknowledged their industrial rule-making slowed
but said the region benefited from cleaner technology that industries
installed under previous pollution orders.
Denis Cuff covers water and the environment. Reach him at 925-943-8257 or
by e-mail at [email protected].
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Address of original story:
http://www.hotcoco.com/stories/hsmog1223.htm
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