1993_04 Insight April 1993

              April 28,1993
Page B3
ARTH IN THE BALANCE:
An Insight Special Report
State's air pollution drifts to Valley
By Davin A. Hutchins
Staff Writer
ants to the Valley is not as severe as the
Valley Air District would have people
believe.
The San Joaquin Valley may have to "There isn't a lot of evidence as to just
work even harder to reduce the air how much air pollution is transported [to
pollution blowing in from the Bay Area, the Valley)." said Jan Bush, a deputy air
according to a decision passed by the pollution control officer for the Bay Area
California Air Resources Board Air District.
(CARB) last month. Bush said that a definitive study has yet
New relaxed regulations may allow   to be conducted that documents just how
Bay Area industries to emit even more   much pollution the Valley receives from
ozone pollutants destined for the Val-   upwind districts like the Bay Area,
ley, which will contribute even more to
the already serious air pollution and
health problems facing its residents.
"This means that citizens in the San
Joaquin Valley Air Basin will have to
work harder to reduce existing pollution levels to accommodate for pollution that migrates here from upwind
districts,"said David Crow, executive
directorof the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District.
Formed in 1991, the Valley Air District is in charge of air pollution regulation for the San Joaquin Valley Air
Basin, which includes Kern, Tulare,
Kings, Fresno, Madera, Merced,
Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties.
"Currently, the amount of pollutants
transported to the Valley from the Bay
Area is classified as 'significant,' said
Crow.
"A study is being conducted now
proposing anew classification—'overwhelming. ' This means there might be
enough pollutants blown into the Valley [from the north] that if no one lived
here and there was no industry at all,
at a constant level ^
But the 1992 SheMBill (AB 2783)
changed all this. To provide relief to small
businesses spending thousands on pollution-control equipment, districts were allowed to relax the "no net increase" requirement up to a certain threshold level
before polluters were required to obtain
offset permits.
One immediate effect of the Sher Bill's
relaxation would be an increase in ozone
emissions state-wide.
"Range of light" surges heavenward in Fresno's sky early February 1993.
much of that ozone makes its way southward to the Valley.
Consequently, critics argue that this
amendment created an inequity between
districts with different air quality and
completely ignored the transport pollution issue.
In his written testimony to the CARB,
Crow proposed that the board require
both the Bay Area Air District and the
Sacramento Air District standards be lowered to 10 tons per year, as in the Valley.
He also offered an alternative proposal,
asking the board to postpone a decision
until accurate data on transport pollutants
are collected.
If the discrepancy between the Bay Area
and the Valley stands, the Valley Air
District may never be able to reduce its
classification from 'severe' because Valley industry would continually work to
reduce both Bay Area and Valley emissions. Crow argued that this would not
only worsen Valley air, but would also
give the Bay Area an unfair economic
advantage.
But the board rejected the proposal and
voted to adhere to the letter of the law.
"We (CARB) never denied that more
pollution would flow to the Valley [after
the board's decision]," said Martin. "It
wilL"
"Sure, [CARB] could have been more
stringent on us (the Bay Area AirDistrict)
if they wanted to but they opted not to,"
Bush said. "The bottom line is this was a
The public informationofficerat CARB,
Jerry Martin, said "[The Valley Air Dis-
the transported pollution alone would    trict] is trying to give the impression that
still exceed state airquality standards."
he said. "This is very significant."
Crow added that the San Joaquin
Valley has only one more classification to go before it has the same air
quality as the smog-ridden Los Angeles area: 'extreme.'
The immediate danger facing Valley
the Valley is victimized but there arc
other air basins, like Mariposa and
Tuolumne, that are victims of the Valley's
pollution because they are downwind from
it The Valley never addresses this."
The heart of the debate resulted from
CARB's March 11 decision to strictly
adhere to an amendment called the Cali-
residents is that, in addition to dealing    fomia Clean Air Act (CCAA).
with the ozone they produce themselves, they must also deal with the
effects of ozone from upwind areas of
the state.
While natural ozone in the upper atmosphere is helpful in blocking out the
sun's ultraviolet rays, man-made ozone
CARB's 9-mcmber Governing Board
voted to allow each industrial polluter in
the Bay Area Air Basin to emit 5 more
tons of ozone pollutants per year than
industrial polluters in the Valley Air Basin, as stated in the CCAA.
Previously in the CCAA, each industrial
produced by factories and automobiles polluter throughout the state was allowed
is injurious to life. "no net increase" in the pollution amounts
Ozone, the chief component of urban without obtaining an "offset" from an-
smog. is one ofthe state's most persis- other source, said Richard McVaigh. air-
tent and widespread air-quality prob- Quality engineer with the Valley Air Dis-
lcms, according to Connie Lewis, the trict.
The Sierra Nevada disappear under smog the last week of April 1993.
Valley Air District's public information officer.
Chronic exposure to ozone can aggravate respiratory diseases, such as
In other words, if someone opened up an
auto body shop, since autos emit ozone
and other pollutants, the owner would
have to get a permit showing it "pur-
Severity of Air Pollution Problem
emphyscma,bronchitisandasthmaand   cliascdoffsctcr^its"fromanothcrsource.
can cause irreparable
damage to lung tissue,
she said. Overexposure
to ozone over a long time
period has also been
known to cause cancer
and death.
According to the Valley Air District's 1992
Annual Report, ozone
and other pollutants in
California contribute to
over 80.000 deaths each
year and $300 million annually in crop damage.
In the face of these
ozone-related health hazards, the controversy
over transported pollutants blown from the Bay
Area Air Basin to the
Valley Air Basin is one
that has potentially serious and adverse health effects on every That source could be a facility that just
Valley resident. shut down, down sized or a facility that
Yet some officials at CARB and the   installed air pollution control equipment.
Bay Area Air Quality Management   which was most often the case.
District disagree because some claim     Therefore, the net level of pollution in a
the effects of these transported pollut-    PV"* district would more or less remain
Pollutants: Ozone
Carbon Monoxide
"Economically, the impact for California businesses would be positive," said
McVaigh. "It will now be easier for small
businesses to expand. Many people, including the CARB, feel the economic
benefits of making [the CCAA] more
lenient to outweigh the
environmental hazards."
"It was known that
there would be an immediate deleterious air
quality impact," said
Crow.
According to the law,
the pollution level of
the air quality district
would determine the
threshold by measuring in tons per year.
Since the Valley Air
District's ozone levels were classified as
'severe,' each Valley
source had to obtain
offset permits after 10
tons per year.
But the Bay Area Air
District's ozone levels were only 'serious' (a stage below
'severe') and each source was granted 15
tons per year. This means compared to a
Valley industrial polluter, a Bay Area
polluter is allowed to emit five more tons
of ozone per year, despite the fact that
Regions
■ Bay Area
■ Sacramento
0 South Coast
D San Diego
~ Standard
decision made by the state Legislature
last year, not by CARB last month. Bay
Area industry wanted relief and lobbied
Sacramento."
Agreeing, Martin said "The board followed the law... as written"
Crow indicated that even CARB is divided on solutions to the problem. He said
that one of the dissenting members of
CARB's governing board commented,
"It appears, in this case, we are punishing
the victim."
In fact, the research staff at CARB actually supported the Valley Air District's
position for 10 tons per year in the Bay
Area and Sacramento Air Districts despite the Governing Board's final vote.
Sylvia Oey, an associate air pollution
specialist at CARB, was actually one of
the CARB staff members who sided with
the Valley Air District's argument.
"Our staff proposed all upwind areas be
given 10 tons per year," she said. "Our
recommendation was based on an equity approach, not necessarily data. We
wanted to give the same amount of
relief to everyone."
"Itwasadifficultdecisionfor[CARB]
to make," Oey said.
The Governing Board vote was 5 to 3.
However, Crow said the issue is not
closed, because he is in the process of
pushing two bills through. One bill that
would require the Bay Area to have the
same permitting requirement as the Valley just left the State Assembly's Natural Resources Committee and is now in
the Ways and Means Committee.
"What we want to do is beef up the
transport mitigation language in the
Clean Air Act," Crow said. "Instead of
having that intent in law, we're trying
to make a literal tie-in to the permitting
requirements— an actual amendment
to the text of the act."
"This is only round one in probably a
15-round bout," he said. "If we don't
get results through one source, we'll
get it through another."
One of those other sources may be the
results of the first definitive study on
transport pollutants due this August
and sponsored by CARB.
The $ 17 million, cight-year-long San
Joaquin Valley Air Quality Modeling
Study will finally tabulate the amount
of ozone that travels to the Valley from
upwind districts.
Crow is hopeful this will give the
Valley the evidence it needs.
Both CARB and the Bay Area Air
District said they would be willing to
reassess the situation once the new
data comes out.
"If there is later evidence this year
and we are responsible," Bush said,
"then we'll address it"
Martin was more skeptical. "There is
ample proof that the Valley earns every bit of the pollution it makes," he
said. "There would be just as much
[Valley] pollution without the wind as
there is with it"
Until the next round, the Valley Air
District is living with the board's decision by conducting workshops in
Modesto, Bakersfield and Fresno to
educate Valley residents on the new
10-tons-of-ozone-per-year permitting
requirement and the inequity compared
to upwind districts such as the Bay
Area.
The head ofthe workshops, McVaigh.
said "Representatives of industry have
basically shown support of the law
since it cuts pollution control costs and
are interested in seeing how it should
be implemented.
"But I have received negative responses from environmental groups,
who say i f we' re not any where close to
reaching state goals as it is, any relaxation of emission standards should not
be allowed at all."
The persistence of such environmental groups to keep California enforcing
the nation's strictest air pollution control standards may be warranted considering that California also has the
nation's worst air pollution.
According to CARB, the potential
health threat from smog in California is
greater than that in the remaining 49
states combined.
♦ Ozone is a colorless gas that is the major constituent
of smog. Related health hazards are respiratory-tract
and throat irritation, chest pain, cough, lung
inflammation and infection.
♦ Carbon Monoxide is a odorless and colorless gas
emitted in the exhaust of vehicles. It reduces the ability
of blood to deliver oxygen to vital tissues affecting the
cardiovascular and nervous systems.