July 24, 1978
Page 22451
URGENCY REMAINS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF AIR QUALITY STATE IMPLEMENTATION PLANS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the recent serious smog alert in the Los Angeles Basin should be a reminder to all communities and States that the passage of the Clean Air Act does not guarantee the success of emergency plans to deal with air pollution crises.
Even with an emergency abatement plan to address such predicted smog alerts, many Los Angeles area residents have been subjected to extended health hazards because the plan's execution has not been completely successful.
The Clean Air amendments of 1977 took special steps to insure that States and local areas had the right to develop and implement their own unique plans to control air pollution from stationary sources and to develop their own transportation patterns. The need for States to move forward with a workable implementation plan is clear if we are to meet clean air goals.
As the District of Columbia enters the second week of an air pollution alert, I would like to bring to my colleagues attention to three newspaper articles which reveal the importance of developing workable air quality implementation plans.
The first article is from the Los Angeles Times and presents an interesting profile of a major city confronting the inherent problems of making emergency control measures work. Two Washington Post articles underscore the urgency of developing air quality plans. One article details the District's attempt to develop such strategies. The second article discusses a study being prepared for the Environmental Protection Agency which indicates that smog levels have a direct correlation to community property values.
Mr. President, I ask that these three articles be printed in the RECORD. The material follows:
CONFUSION SHROUDS L.A. SMOG ALERT
(By Sandra Blakeslee)
As the worst smog attack in years continued Friday, an emergency plan to reduce emissions and cut back traffic flow greatly confused citizens and government and industry officials throughout the South Coast Air Basin.
Compounding the problem were temperatures of up to 101 degrees, which caused people to retreat indoors and turn on air conditioners and fans. The use of appliances pushed demand for electricity in the Southland to an all-time high.
The second day of heavy smog forced the South Coast Air Quality Management District to implement its Emergency Abatement Plan for the first time, as second-stage smog alerts were both predicted and reached in the basin.
Local air pollution authorities attempted to enforce its plan by issuing notices of violations to more than 40 companies for failing to implement traffic abatement plans among their employes.
State and federal authorities kept an eye on the smog siege and said they will assess how well air pollution authorities — and basin residents — performed in the crisis.
"We are encouraged that at least people in Los Angeles are trying," said Tom Quinn, chairman of the state Air Resources Board.
Tankers in Los Angeles Harbor complied with control measures and nine ships were reported idle in the Los Angeles-Long Beach harbor complex. "This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this," said Harvey Harnagel, Long Beach operations director.
Oil refineries responded by cutting emissions a reported 20 percent.
But, overall, the first test of the SCAQMD plan met with mixed results.
The plan — which was adopted in May 1977 — requires the district to take strong measures to cut down on emissions in the air basin when it knows in advance that stage-two smog conditions will occur the next day.
The plan has two parts. Major stationary sources of pollution must cut back their operations by 20 percent or more. The 1,350 companies involved have done this before and generally were able to comply on Friday.
However, these same companies were required to implement a traffic abatement plan for their employees — for the first time — and not all succeeded in doing so.
A requirement that 2,800 other businesses in the basin force their employes to car-pool to work — or in some cases stay home — caused the most confusion.
While 2,000 companies had prepared traffic plans, the district said, a spot check by The Times indicated that many organizations were caught completely by surprise.
District officials said they had left it up to employers to take action after notifying them about the stage-two alert on commercial radio or television.
It was the first time that citizens of the region were given an opportunity — if they heard the news — to reduce smog by forming voluntary car pools or by opting for public transportation to get to work.
During Friday's smog attack, natural gas supplies were plentiful for the Department of Water and Power (DWP) and Southern California Edison Co. Both utilities were required by the emergency rules to burn natural gas, which is much cleaner than fuel oil.
Edison said 60 percent of its power needs Friday were being imported from outside the South Coast Air Basin. Much of it came from hydroelectric sources in the Pacific Northwest and from coal and nuclear plants located outside the basin.
Edison customers demanded the most electricity in the history of the company Friday. Demand peaked at 3 p.m. at 11,429 megawatts. (The previous record was set on September 1977, with 11,247 megawatts.)
The same was true for DWP. Power demand peaked at 2:30 p.m. at 3,912 megawatts. (Their previous high was 3,809 megawatts in June 1976.)
DWP was generating about half of its electricity in the basin and brought in the other half from outside sources.
The current smog problem is a creature of peculiar weather conditions, said James Birakos of the SCAQMD. "We are prisoners of the weather right now. We expect things to improve late Sunday night but right now we are stuck with it."
Birakos explained that smog builds up when a layer of very hot air — called an inversion layer — moves in over the South Coast Air Basin. In recent days, the inversion layer has been at only 200 feet and the winds have been exceptionally light. When strong sunlight is added, these conditions lead to high concentrations of ozone, or photochemical smog.
Ozone is a pollutant that is not emitted directly into the air. Rather it is created when two other pollutants — hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen — combine in the atmosphere under the influence of the sun.
The ozone was at its worst in five years Friday. By mid afternoon stage-two episodes were called in the southeastern area (around Whittier), in the West San Gabriel Valley and in the Pomona- Walnut Valley.
A stage-two episode is called when ozone reaches a level of .35 parts per million. At that level, many people notice its smell and feel some eye irritation.
There have been nine stage-two episodes so far this year, Birakos said, although none was predicted. In 1977, there was only one and in 1976 there were four.
During Friday's episodes, companies throughout the basin complied with traffic abatement plans in various ways. Some achieved almost full compliance, some did nothing and many in between were exceedingly confused.
Edison Co., for one, was prepared. Its plan was approved last May and all 2,000 employees were notified in writing that steps to curb their driving might have to be taken.
When the alert was predicted Thursday (Edison Co. officials said they were informed by 2 p.m.) the company's plan went into effect. Emissions were rolled back. Then all employes were told by their supervisors to car pool to work Friday morning. Signs were posted at all exits in the company's two main buildings, reminding them of the rules.
Officials roped off 65 percent of the Edison parking lots Friday morning. When employes came to work, guards turned away every car with less than three persons and herded the complying cars into 35 percent of the available lot space.
Those turned away — and it was only a small fraction the company said — parked on the street and walked.
At the Spectra Strip plant, a small wire and cable company in Garden Grove that employs about 200 people, things did not go quite so smoothly.
The company's plan for a stage-two episode requires that half its employes be sent home for the day — without pay.
However, the company did not enforce the regulation until after all the workers arrived Friday morning. Thus, about 100 people drove to work, turned around and drove home again — to help stop air pollution.
"I am sure many of them went to the beach or went shopping," company spokesman Bennett Brachman said. "The inspector came in and we showed him we are complying with the plan, but we needed more warning. This was not a realistic approach to the problem. It also cut our production for the day to half the normal amount."
Federal government agencies in Los Angeles have worked out a communications network especially to handle notification of employees in case of an emergency smog alert. But it was not put into effect Thursday because the originator of the network — the chairman of the federal Executive Board — was never notified of the alert by the SCAQMD.
At DWP, confusion reigned. The company switched over to natural gas on Thursday and kept up conservation measures throughout the next 24 hours. However, they did not implement their traffic abatement plan among workers since at least several officials thought the rules did not apply to them. No stage-two episode was called in their exact area, they said.
The SCAQMD said Friday that everyone in the basin — no matter where they live of work — is obligated to help out in the difficult situation.
Some companies did absolutely nothing. The Times-Mirror Co., for example, has formulated an episode plan but it has not yet been approved by the SCAQMD. Also, company officials said, no one from the district notified them of any obligation to participate in Friday's measures.
The SCAQMD was criticized widely Friday for failing to notify the public and companies that they were expected to take action.
Quinn, head of the ARE, said local public health officials, elected officials and hospitals were not notified of the predicted episodes. The radio system that the district uses to notify companies under the rules did not work well.
The district defended itself by saying the regulations are brand new. Plans are to upgrade the system within three months. Radio transmissions will be basinwide and inspectors will have computerized lists on each firm to help with their checking, district officials said.
As the stage-two alerts were being called Friday, the Lung Assn. issued a report on the effects of smog on children.
Because children's lungs are still developing they contain more cells that are especially sensitive to air pollution, the report said. Children exchange a much greater volume of air than adults. relative to body weieht, and they breathe more rapidly because of strenuous play.
[From the Washington Post. July 18, 1978]
AREA MAY GET STIFFER RULES ON AIR POLLUTION
(By Stephen J. Lynton)
Controversial antipollution measures, including a ban on free parking for U.S. employees, are under serious consideration by state and local officials as part of the Washington area's stepped-up efforts to meet new federally imposed clean-air requirements.
Other pollution curbs currently under study would require additional prohibitions against on-street parking for commuters, higher gasoline or other taxes, and mandatory annual auto inspections that would force drivers to pay for repairs if their cars emit excessive pollution.
The proposals, regarded as possible means of complying with last year's amendments to the federal Clean Air Act, are intended to help lessen the Washington area's most severe and intractable air pollution problems — those caused by auto exhaust fumes.
Many of the measures have been vehemently rejected in the past because of stiff political and public resistance. including objections in Congress. The proposals would cost motorists more money, make parking spaces scarce and expensive and probably force many commuters to stop driving their cars to work.
"We're going to get down to some basic issues of life styles," said Dennis R. Bates, health and environmental protection director for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, in a recent interview. "It is one of the most difficult tasks that I can think of." COG is coordinating the area's efforts to comply with the new federal antipollution requirements.
So tough are the obstacles to cleaning up Washington's air that many officials here say they already are certain the Washington region cannot reduce pollution rapidly enough to meet the federal government's clean air standards by 1982, the initial target date set by last year's Clean Air Act amendments. Some Washington-area officials also express skepticism that the federal standards will be met even by 1987, the final federally prescribed deadline.
Washington's air pollution has prompted more than a decade of regulatory crack-downs, legislation, controversy and court battles. Key environmental officials say that government efforts have failed to bring about any significant reduction in the two forms of auto exhaust pollution, photo-chemical smog and carbon monoxide, that plague the Washington area, as they do most major American cities.
Photochemical smog, also known as photo-chemical oxidants, consists almost entirely of ozone and is most prevalent in summer months when a chemical reaction takes place in sunlight between hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, both of which are auto exhaust byproducts. Carbon monoxide is produced directly by automobile combustion and is most pervasive in cold winter weather when car engines take longest to start and warm up.
Since 1970, COG has announced 31 air pollution alerts, several of them lasting a week or longer. Thirty of these were hot weather alerts caused by photochemical smog. A single two-day carbon monoxide alert occurred in January 1973. The frequency of these alerts, as has been underscored this summer (one of the most pollution free in recent years), has depended largely on the area's sometimes erratic weather patterns.
The extent to which air pollution poses a health hazard is not fully understood by medical researchers, although it is widely believed that some forms of pollution, including those caused by auto exhausts, may be harmful to the elderly, infants and persons suffering from respiratory, heart and other ailments. Whether repeated exposure to polluted air causes permanent damage to normally healthy adults is less clear.
The Washington area's sharpest air pollution controversy was triggered by a plan announced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1973 that would have required a series of harsh measures, including a $2-a-day surcharge on parking in major sections of the Washington area. The plan was intended to deter commuters from driving to work and to reduce auto pollution.
Key members of Congress immediately balked at the parking surcharge. EPA quickly retreated, abandoning the surtax. Other major sections of the EPA plan, including requirements for equipping cars with antipollution devices and inspecting autos regularly to enforce exhaust limits, later were thrown out by the U.S. Court of Appeals.
More recently, the Washington area, like most other metropolitan regions has been required to draw up new plans by Jan. 1 for meeting federal clean air standards by 1987. This federal mandate was included in the 1977 Clean Air Act amendments. It carries a threat of sanctions, including possible cut-off of U.S. highway funds, for regions that fail to meet the congressional imposed requirements.
One measure that is considered almost certain to be required here, under current federal regulations, is a system of annual auto inspections that would keep cars off the roads if their exhausts exceed pollution limits. In the past, the Maryland and Virginia legislatures repeatedly have refused to set up such inspection programs.
According to federal and local officials, the 1977 Clean Air Act amendments also will give Washington area governments broader leverage to impose higher parking fees on federal government employees, thousands of whom now are provided with parking spaces free or at low rates. Moves to get federal employees to pay more for parking have met vehement resistance in the past from federal officials. Environmental planners contend that federal workers should pay prevailing commercial parking rates, currently said to be about $60 a month in downtown areas.
In addition to these and other measures currently under study, COG and other Washington area officials say they also anticipate significant decreases in auto pollution by the late 1980s as a result of federal regulations requiring auto manufacturers to produce cleaner burning engines. These expectations prevail despite last year's congressional decision, under pressure from the auto industry and the auto workers' union, to relax previous auto pollution deadlines.
Under last year's Clean Air Act amendments, such inspection programs will be required by 1981 or 1982 for any severely polluted region that fails to comply with federal clean air standards by 1982, a deadline most officials believe the Washington area cannot meet.
While Washington's auto exhaust pollution remains severe, sometimes climbing to three times the level prescribed by federal health protection standards, Washington area officials note that substantial advances have occurred in reducing other forms of pollution caused by industrial plants and other non-automotive sources. There have been sharp decreases, they say, in particulate pollution — that caused by miniscule particles of dust, soot and other objects — and in sulfur dioxide.
Sulfur dioxide pollution has been reduced by about 50 percent here since 1972, said John V. Brink, the District of Columbia's air and water quality chief, in an interview. The decrease occurred largely because of regional restrictions requiring low-sulfur fuel. In the early 1970s, Brink said, the area violated federal clean air standards for sulfur dioxide, but now is safely within these limits.
Downtown Washington still violates federal antipollution ceilings for particulate matter, but Brink noted that major decreases in particulates have taken place since 1968, with reductions approaching 50 percent measured at some downtown locations. Officials attribute these decreases partly to regulations curbing pollution from incinerators, industrial boilers and the open burning of debris.
In addition, the Potomac Electric Power Co. has agreed, after protracted court disputes and negotiations, to carry out substantial, costly modifications at its plants to curb particulate pollution, including a $50 million retooling of its coal burning generating plant beside the Potomac River in Alexandria, expected to be completed by the end of this year.
Brink contends that the major violator of particulate pollution limits in the Washington area today is the U.S. government itself. The General Services Administration operates two heating plants here that long have been the center of a pollution battle in U.S. District Court. While city and federal officials remain in disagreement over many points in this dispute, GSA officials now say they expect to bring their heating plants into compliance with antipollution requirements by early 1981.
Even in their long-stymied efforts to reduce photochemical smog, Washington area officials point to at least one breakthrough — a controversial program to reduce hydrocarbon fumes at gasoline storage depots and gas service stations through installation of anti-pollution devices.
Although Washington area officials say this program has achieved substantial gains, it also has stirred anger and resentment among retail gas industry officials, who complain that some of the costly new antipollution equipment repeatedly malfunctions.
WHEN SMOG MOVES IN, AFFLUENT LEAVE — PROPERTY VALUES TIED TO CALIFORNIA COMMUNITIES' AIR QUALITY
(By Joel Kotkin and Katharine Macdonald)
Los ANGELES.— The smog that has been making life miserable for millions in this metropolis all summer long is a major factor in creating slums out of some once prime residential communities, according to a study being prepared for the Environmental Protection Agency.
Ralph D'Arge, an economics professor at the University of Wyoming, after over a year of work is now completing a survey of communities here, which, he claims, shows conclusively that smog levels can determine whether a community becomes more or less affluent.
"In these really smoggy areas, you are getting a lower value for housing. People with money and a preference for clean air are moving out," says D'Arge, who expects to present his report to EPA in September. "You're getting poorer communities with increasingly more minorities. It really takes a toll."
One of the smog-infested areas studied by D'Arge is the San Gabriel Valley, a suburban area east of downtown Los Angeles that last year suffered more than 120 days of Stage 1 smog alert, meaning that young children and those with respiratory ailments were urged to avoid strenuous outdoor activity. This summer the valley's more than 1 million residents have been treated to a dozen more serious Stage 2 smog alerts in which even the healthiest individuals are urged to avoid breathing much of the putrid air.
Smog, D'Arge maintains, has changed the life and character of such valley towns as El Monte, Alhambra and San Gabriel, which, virtually all middle class and white before the smog reached them in the 1960s, are quickly becoming dominated by poorer, mostly Mexican-American residents. A recent report by the Los Angeles Community Development Department cited the valley as one area changing dramatically from predominantly Anglo to Hispanic.
Donna Crippen, a 48-year-old native of El Monte, says the smog started pouring over the hills from Los Angeles on a regular basis a little more than a decade ago, changing forever the suburban community of 62,000. "You used to be able to go up in this valley and see Mount Baldy 50 miles away," she recalled. "Now you can't even see the stars at night because of the smog."
Before the smog came, Crippen, whose husband Jack is mayor, says El Monte was overwhelmingly a comfortable community of well-kept houses surrounded by walnut groves and fields of strawberries. Today, many once-substantial homes are rundown, littered with trash and scarred by graffiti, and the tide of Mexican-American immigration has risen to the point where Mexican Americans compose almost one-half of El Monte's population.. The EPA study, according to D'Arge, found similar negative effects on communities all along the Los Angeles "smog belt," stretching 40 miles east and downward of downtown. At the same time, D'Arge adds, many once-deteriorated sections in less smoggy areas, particularly near the beaches, are experiencing an unprecedented boom in real estate.
D'Arge found that people who can afford to are willing to spend, on the average, $2,000 a year extra to live in non-smoggy areas.
Bob Lowes, a spokesman for the California Association of Realtors, agreed that there is no question that prices in "clean" areas are skyrocketing above those in residential areas once considered more fashionable but that now are blanketed by smog.
In the working-class Mar Vista area, in the "clean" west side of Los Angeles, for instance, prices for modest homes have risen in the past decade from $25,000 to more than $110,000, according to real estate agent Joe Viestra. The average price for a home in Upland, a suburban area deep in the "smog belt," today is $53,000, or half that in the "clean" areas, according to figures provided by Vernon Riphagen, president of the local realtors association.
"If you were to overlay a map of the areas which have been growing most rapidly with a pollution map, you'd find a very strong correlation," claims Tom Lieser, an economist for Security Pacific National Bank in Los Angeles. "There is no doubt clean air is capitalized into property values."
Despite the smog and the statistics showing spreading barrio, or Mexican-American slum, conditions throughout the "smog belt," many realtors in areas with poor air quality believe their communities thrive even in the face of the smog. "People will live with it, they get used to it, it's like a toothache,"Upland realtor Riphagen said.
But Prof. Ward Elliott, who teaches political science at Claremont University in the San Gabriel Valley, has studied the situation and concludes that property values are being kept down by the smog. "Of course the realtors and the property owners have a vested interest in not admitting that their property values are affected by the smog, but the fact is they are," he says.
While they won't publicly admit concern, valley businessmen privately admit that the almost daily reports here about their area's air quality could be chasing away affluent residents and businesses. "They call the valley unhealthful on the radio and Santa Monica and the beaches healthy. Somebody hears that and you've got to admit it's not encouraging them to come to San Gabriel," one businessman said. "Nobody wants to admit it but there's no question it bothers one."