Study says California leads in dirty air, smog may be worse this summer than last

Friday, August 30th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP)_ With nearly twice as many ``smog days'' as any other state, California continues to lead the nation in dirty air, followed by Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio, an environmental group said.

The group, which gathered data from government air quality monitoring stations across the country, said that in the summer of 2001 there were 4,634 reported times when smog levels exceeded federal health standards, about a 10 percent increase in violations from the summer of 2000.

Preliminary data from 20 states suggests even more air quality violations this summer with 15 of the states already having passed the total number recorded all last summer, says the report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Findings from all years were released Thursday.

``Most places are getting a lot more smog this summer than last summer,'' said Rebecca Stanfield, author of the report. One reason is that high temperatures and drought that has plagued much of the eastern part of the country this year, adding to the smog problem.

Stanfield said PIRG gathered the statistics in part to show the extent of the country's air pollution problems at a time when the Bush administration wants to revamp how it address pollution from power plants.

``It's no time to ease up on air polluters and let polluters off the hook,'' she said.

The Bush administration has asked Congress to adopt a voluntary cap and emissions trading system _ dubbed ``Clear Skies'' by its supporters _ to address smog-causing emissions from power plants. Its advocates say in the end it will result in cleaner air while easing the burden on industry. Environmentalists claim it will give utilities loopholes to avoid current clean air requirements.

Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, an industry trade group, said the PIRG report ``masks the fact that air quality has been improving'' steadily since passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970 and that emissions from power plants will continue to decline in upcoming years.

PIRG based its dirty air numbers on statistics gathered from states and regional offices of the Environmental Protection Agency, which monitors air quality to determine whether counties around the country meet minimum pollution levels for what is considered healthy air.

A violation occurs when the amount of ozone, a precursor of smog, exceeds 0.08 parts per million average over an eight-hour period.

According to PIRG, California last summer had 130 days in which at least one such violation was reported and a total of 1,359 violations during the entire 2001 summer smog season. Texas was second with 72 ``smog days'' (310 total violations) followed by Pennsylvania with 39 days (393 violations), New Jersey, 35 days (190 violations), and Ohio, 34 days (250 violations).

Despite the report's findings, California's air quality ``has vastly improved over the last 30 years and we're still on the decline, as ozone levels have been dropping in the state,'' said Gennet Paauwe, spokeswoman for the California Air Resources Board.

For example, Paauwe noted, the Los Angeles metropolitan area in 1981 had 199 days in which air quality rose above the 8-hour standard; it declined to 94 days by 2000.

The preliminary data up to mid-August of 2002 suggests this summer has been even worse, although California was not among the states in which current numbers were examined. The data shows a 60 percent increase in the number of times ozone levels exceeded federal health standards in the 20 states from New England to Texas.

Texas was among the states that this summer had fewer violations so far (209 compared to 310 all of last summer). Fewer violations were also reported in Michigan, Massachusetts, Maine and Rhode Island compared to a year ago.

But other states reported staggering increases.

The number of violations tripled in North Carolina from 182 all of last summer to 544 as of mid-August this year, the report said. Violations increased fourfold, or nearly so, in Indiana (432), Illinois (175), and South Carolina (174). Increases were reported at most states across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic region.