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 Cleaner air requires major change To better the air quality in the Valley, many say we need the kind of wake-up call L.A.-area residents got. A cleanup is no longer optional. Move Fresno and Bakersfield out of the San Joaquin Valley. That's one way you could clear the murky air to reach the federal health standard. That's 675,000 people and their cars, barbecues and lawnmowers.
You could shut down about 7,000 Valley businesses between June and September. Or, how about banning driving three days a week on all Valley roads? Each of those unlikely scenarios would flush 300 tons of pollutants out of the air daily. No one would seriously recommend these solutions, but the scenarios accurately portray the gut punch that soon will land in the Valley: A dramatic air cleanup will touch the lives of everyone who lives here. And this cleanup is not optional, says the federal government. Don't believe it? Look south of the Tehachapi mountains. That same cleanup message arrived in the early 1980s. Using heftier political muscle than you would find in the Valley, the Los Angeles area resisted through 15 years of lawsuits, heated public debate and threats from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. When the dust settled a few years ago, L.A.'s attitude finally had shifted like the San Andreas fault. Angelenos got the message. Instead of being the punch line for a dirty-air joke, L.A. became synonymous with innovation in air cleanup. Now the Los Angeles area's South Coast Air Basin hasn't had a smog alert in four years. Federal air violations have dropped 75% over the past decade. The whole nation now marches to the beat of air cleanup in Los Angeles, which employs everything from the least-polluting paints to the tightest regulations anywhere for the petroleum industry. When another city or air basin needs to reduce air pollution, L.A.'s cleanup measures provide all the latest answers. For instance, Los Angeles required its largest employers to partially pay for employee fares on mass transit for commuting purposes. Large employers also began charging employees for parking as a way to encourage car pooling or riding the bus. Los Angeles doesn't have healthy air yet, but the worst episodes of eye-burning smog seem over. In fact, South Coast has violated the eight-hour smog standard -- an average reading over eight hours that exceeds the level where lung damage begins -- fewer times than the San Joaquin Valley during the past four years. "There was a kind of enlightening," says Barry Wallerstein, executive director of the South Coast Air Quality Management District. "You have to get beyond the denial stage, or you won't be able to solve your problems." A lot of the South Coast's success can be attributed to cleaner automobiles and fuels. The same vehicle advances, and many of South Coast's other controls, have helped in the Valley, but geography, climate and population growth are turning the Valley's stubborn haze into a crisis.
To solve the air crisis, Valley residents need an L.A.-like awakening, say environmentalists, community activists and others. They think Valley residents must raise air quality on the agendas of city councils, boards of supervisors and state and federal legislators, who can provide the legal muscle to do something about pollution reduction. People also should make air quality a priority in their own lives, say air district officials: Consolidate vehicle trips, walk or ride a bicycle to do errands. Use a gas grill instead of charcoal. Don't burn wood in your fireplace. Every bit of pollution reduction will count in a place where dirty air hangs for days in stagnation. "People need to understand they're creating pollution when they start their car and drive two blocks to buy milk," says David Crow, executive director of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. "The car never warms up, so its emissions are at their worst." More miles will be driven as the Valley's population grows from 3.3 million to 4 million people in the next decade. Air district officials are counting on new engines and fuels to reduce about 120 tons of pollutants a day in the next several years. New rules on industries will cut another 56 tons. But where will the final 120-plus tons of reductions come from while the Valley population quickly expands? There are many ideas, but few solid solutions are being discussed publicly yet. Aside from driving restrictions or something similar, there is no magic bullet yet. Nobody knows how to squeeze that much pollution from the air. The Sierra Club and medical community activists suggest a starting place: Slow sprawl, clean up agriculture and invest in mass transit with clean fuels. Currently, new developments and regional warehouses are paving over Valley farmland. Businesses have discovered the cheap, available property, something that isn't in large supply in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. But developments add pollution. Larger developments can add hundreds of tons of pollution, primarily from vehicles. That's many times the level at which major pollution sources, such as refineries or glass factories, must get federal permits. But subdivisions aren't regulated that way.
Change the rules to make them pay their way for air quality, says Sierra Club member Kevin Hall, a Fresno County planning commissioner. The system already makes new businesses pay. For example, a new power plant would have to buy the right to pollute the air. For each ton of pollution the plant creates, it would have to buy more than a ton of pollution savings that has been accumulated through previous reductions by other businesses. These are "emission reduction credits," which are banked for various businesses. A nitrogen oxides credit costs $27,500, but the cost fluctuates. If a business needed to buy 20 credits, it would cost more than $500,000. Hall says other polluters should pay in the same way. "Why not have a fee for developments or regional warehouses that run trucks in and out every day?" he asks. Environmentalists believe these new arrivals should be charged a per-ton fee for pollution. The local air district could raise millions for clean mass transit and fleet conversions to clean fuels, such as natural gas or electric vehicles, they say. The money also could be used to help cut back on open-field ag burning by subsidizing a program to deliver farm waste to biomass power plants in the Valley. The money also could fund incentive programs to replace dirty farm diesel pumps on wells or to build systems for using cow manure to make electricity. Both efforts would reduce farm air pollution. How much money would society be willing to invest this way? Economists say that's the key question. Joel Schwartz, senior fellow at the Reason Public Policy Institute, a libertarian think tank, says the cost of cleaning up the air is borne by consumers. "We should always be looking for the least costly ways to improve our welfare," he says. He argues that going after gross-polluting cars would be more cost-effective than trying to further reduce emissions on cars that are low-polluting. One answer may be remote sensing to identify gross-polluting vehicles. From the roadway's edge, these devices shine light on a vehicle's exhaust, measuring how much light is absorbed in the process. The more light absorbed, the more pollution is coming out. Gross polluters amount to fewer than 10% of California's vehicles. But they put out more than half of the state's smog-forming emissions from cars and light trucks. The state currently has no way to catch them.
Since vehicles are the major air problem, why not require public fleets -- school buses, transit buses, city cars, county trucks -- to use only clean fuels? The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District is considering that. Clean-air vehicles cost more money than conventional vehicles. If the government provided more money to help buy these vehicles, environmentalists say, there would be more of them on the road. Yosemite National Park this year picked up a $96,000 grant from the National Park Foundation to buy 12 zero-emission electric vehicles that can be charged from any household outlet. With top speeds of 25 mph and a 30-mile range, they're perfect for short trips around environmentally sensitive Yosemite Valley. The public's influence on decision-makers could play a big role in many other issues. They include:
Many agencies consider vehicles powered by natural gas to be a cleaner alternative to diesel, although diesel engines and fuel are expected to be cleaned up dramatically in the next five years.
On some state boards, including the California Air Resources Board, members with an area of expertise are appointed. Such board members can advocate from a position of authority on the board.
The Consumer Assistance Program provides up to $500 worth of repairs to help cars pass their Smog Check.
The downtowns of Valley cities should be revived, say planners. Growth and development should fill in the gaps within cities instead of creating sprawl. Research also indicates trees can help reduce the temperature and filter some pollution from the air. There also is evidence that tree shade over parking lots cuts down on pollution-creating gases coming from cars.
Robert Johnston, a land-use researcher at the University of California at Davis, says travel between cities is as important as travel within cities. He says the Valley hasn't yet taken a serious look at the issue. "It's pretty hard to reduce travel right now because gas and cars are so cheap and parking is virtually free in many places," he says. "Sprawl is something that should be on the table in the Valley. When you're talking about sprawl, you're talking about lots of traffic."
MYTH: Cleaning up the Valley's air is a desirable goal, but as a practical matter, it is impossible.
REALITY: That's what they said in Southern California in the 1980s, but a determined cleanup effort has left that region with cleaner air than the Valley today. |
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©
2002 The Fresno Bee
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