'Tough enforcement'

By Steven Winter
Piedra

(Updated Thursday, January 2, 2003, 4:41 PM)

I moved here three years ago at retirement for the beautiful climate, to grow fruit and hike the foothills. I've had lung problems, for the first time in my life, ever since.

Outdoors people burn brush, leaves, household trash and even plastic and PVC. Rest assured that a lot of Christmas wrap and Styrofoam will be disposed of in indoor fireplaces and stoves. Old vehicles cruise the foothills and cause you to hold your breath when they pass. There are many campfires in the county parks year around. Most outdoor burning and open fireplaces should be banned. Heating stoves must be upgraded.

Taking the easy way out is human nature. The only solution is to make it more expensive to pollute than not. Want to burn that brush? A $500 fee. Left in a pile it makes fine quail habitat. Unapproved heating stoves? A $250 annual fee. Burn the fireplace for that romantic interlude or to clear the Christmas trash? That's a $1,000 fine. Need to burn that almond orchard rather than chip it for power generation? OK, that's $300 per acre. Need to drive a gross polluter? If you must, that's $1,000 per year. Use the fees and fines for tough enforcement, especially for gross polluting autos, and to help ease the economic hardships that will result.

If extended to all sources of air pollution this will work. I don't think anything else will. The alternative is long-term economic stagnation and widespread health damage. We all have to pay the price to live here one way or another.

I love it here and I'll pay to stay, but not with my health.