Oct. 23, 2003
Southland air quality officials
today called on the California Air Resources Board to strengthen the measures in
its clean air plan to help the Southland achieve healthful air quality.
“This has been the worst
smog season in Southern California in six years,” said Barry Wallerstein,
executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
“The California Air
Resources Board must build upon its past successes and act today to adopt strong
measures to cut pollution from cars, trucks, boats, diesel engines and consumer
products.
“AQMD does not have the
authority to regulate these sources, and they are responsible for most of our
smog problem.”
At issue is the California
Air Resources Board’s so-called State Implementation Plan, a road map for
achieving clean air in the nation’s smoggiest region by 2010. CARB’s Governing
Board meets today to adopt the State Implementation Plan and decide which
control measures to include in it.
In August, AQMD’s
Governing Board adopted the 2003 Air Quality Management Plan, which details the
amount of emission reductions needed – and from which sources – to meet federal
health-based air quality standards by 2010.
In total, emissions of
volatile organic compounds (VOCs) will have to be cut by 336 tons per day and
oxides of nitrogen by 223 tons per day, above and beyond control measures
already on the books, to achieve clean air goals. VOCs and oxides of nitrogen
form ozone smog and also contribute to fine particulate pollution. About 80
percent of these needed reductions currently are long-term measures that have
not been defined. CARB is responsible for almost all of the long-term measures.
“If we are to get clean
air in this region, we need CARB to speed up its program. That means tackling
as many long-term measures as possible now, instead of waiting until the 2010
deadline is upon us,” Wallerstein said.
Specifically, AQMD is
recommending that CARB adopt the following short-term measures, which CARB can
accomplish with its existing legal authority and without any public funding:
- Replacement of emissions control equipment for passenger vehicles
at periodic intervals, such as every 100,000 miles;
- Use of remote sensing to identify high-emitting vehicles and
enhance the state’s Smog Check program starting in 2005;
- Cleaner gasoline with lower sulfur and smog-forming ingredients;
- Retrofitting heavy-duty trucks and buses with catalysts to reduce
smog-forming oxides of nitrogen;
- Replacement of older, highly polluting, two-stroke recreational
marine engines with cleaner four-stroke engines through a buy-back program;
- Replacement or clean-up of existing diesel-powered off-road
construction and industrial engines with those meeting new emission standards;
- Strengthening existing regulations so that up to 60 percent of
residential lawn and garden equipment would be zero-polluting electric models;
and
- Consumer products with ultra-low amounts of volatile organic
compounds, which contribute to ozone formation.
If CARB were to adopt
these measures, they could reduce volatile organic compounds by at least 60 tons
per day and oxides of nitrogen by at least 66 tons per day, according to an AQMD
analysis.
“These measures are doable
today,” Wallerstein said. “If CARB takes the initiative and adopts them, it
will go a long ways toward making our clean air goal a reality.”
AQMD is the air pollution
control agency for Orange County and major portions of Los Angeles, San
Bernardino and Riverside counties.
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