Valley stakes claim to cleaner

By Alex Breitler

Record Staff Writer, November 15, 2013  

Valley air officials declared a “historic” victory Thursday, saying the region has achieved a federal pollution standard after more than two decades and $40 billion spent to clean the air.

The Environmental Protection Agency must agree with that claim before it becomes official.

But Thursday’s news was a refreshing change of tone in the San Joaquin Valley, where the air has long been considered among the worst in the nation.

A long journey

The path toward meeting the ozone standard has been lengthy and difficult to follow:

• 1979: The Environmental Protection Agency sets a one-hour standard for ozone pollution.

• 1990: The Clean Air Act sets deadlines. At this point, there are hundreds of ozone violations in the Valley each year, including 281 violations in 1996.

• 2004: The Valley is deemed to be in “extreme nonattainment,” which means meeting the standard is considered to be impossible with technology existing at the time.

• 2010: The number of violations has steadily declined since the ’90s, but the Valley for the first time becomes subject to potential federal penalties for failing to meet the standard, even though that standard has actually been revoked.

• 2011: Valley drivers begin paying a $12 DMV fee as an alternative to leaving businesses to pay $29 million in penalties.

• 2012: Seven ozone violations are reported.

• 2013: For the first time, zero ozone violations are reported. Officials credit billions of dollars to clean up polluting businesses and efforts by the public to decrease driving.

• What’s next: The EPA must agree that the Valley has achieved the standard. Litigation could follow. And there are other, more stringent ozone standards that we still fail to meet, including an eight-hour standard established in 1997.

It also means that drivers from Stockton to Bakersfield could eventually no longer be required to pay an annual $12 DMV fee that resulted from our failure to meet the standard.

“It’s a huge accomplishment, for which we owe a great deal of gratitude” to businesses and to the general public, said San Joaquin County Supervisor Bob Elliott, who is also a board member for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.

The board agreed Thursday to formally ask the EPA to find the Valley in compliance, a process that could take years.

Kerry Drake, associate director of the EPA’s air quality division in San Francisco, said the fact that the district has attained the standard, or is close to doing so, is “wonderful news.” But, he added, the district must prove its assertions are correct.

One air monitoring station in Fresno was out of commission for a time in 2011, and the district must show there would not have been any violations during that time, Drake said. Another station was relocated. The district must also explain why a 2012 violation that officials have blamed on fires should not be counted against the Valley.

“EPA has to have something to look at with regard to those things before we can make any decision,” Drake said. “But we stand ready to roll up our sleeves and work on it. The San Joaquin Valley is always one of our highest priorities and always will be.”

The standard in question concerns ozone, a dangerous form of summertime pollution for which anyone who drives a car is partially responsible.

The one-hour ozone standard was established in 1979 and was actually revoked in 2005 in favor of a more stringent, eight-hour standard. However, provisions in the Clean Air Act to guard against backsliding require the Valley to meet the old standard while simultaneously planning for stricter new standards.

And that’s important to remember, activists said, in the midst of the pop-the-cork mood Thursday.

“This is an old, old standard, and we have many ozone standards that are more health protective that we are a very long way from achieving,” said Sarah Sharpe, a member of the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition. “We still have a severe air pollution problem, and our health is still in danger many days.”

Stockton hasn’t violated the old standard since 1999, but when it comes to regulation, the Valley is treated the same from top to bottom.

The law requires polluting businesses to pay extra fees when an air basin fails to meet a standard, but in this case, the EPA allowed the Valley air district to spread much of that $29 million annual cost to drivers instead, which the district did by establishing the DMV fees in 2011. The money collected from those fees stays with the district for air quality improvement projects and does not go to the federal treasury.

Anthony Presto, a spokesman for the air district, said a decision on whether to continue the DMV fees or eliminate them will be made after the EPA issues its determination.

Never before has an air basin that has been declared in “extreme nonattainment” recovered and met a pollution standard, district officials said. Valley businesses spent more than $40 billion cleaning up their emissions, and more than 500 new pollution rules were adopted. Most recently, the public was asked to drive less frequently on days with high levels of ozone through a new “Air Alert” outreach program.

“This is a historic occasion for the district,” air district Executive Director Seyed Sadredin said. “Given the enormity of this achievement, we owe our gratitude to the people that really made it happen.”

Contact reporter Alex Breitler at (209) 546-8295 or abreitler@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at www.recordnet.com/breitlerblog.