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Public pumps out ideas at air district meetings
| Wednesday, Jul 26 2006 9:45 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, Jul 26 2006 9:49 PM
If one man gets his way, valley air regulators would construct a massive pollution-cleaning machine modeled after the Ionic Breeze indoor air purifier.
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That was one idea pitched Wednesday to the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, which asked for all air-cleansing ideas at town hall meetings in Bakersfield and Delano. Beyond the Ionic Breeze, locals suggested the district launch tree-planting initiatives, restrict lawn mower use on bad-air days and take a stand against new off-road vehicle parks and other potentially polluting projects.
They also lamented the southern valley's poor public transportation.
But the 80 people who turned out for the Bakersfield meeting seemed at least equally interested in critiquing the district's past work -- both to praise and blast it -- as it was in offering ideas that could help the district solve its smog and soot problems.
"Clearly the district is making tremendous progress," said Thomas Umenhofer, who advises the Western States Petroleum Association on air quality issues.
He suggested the district work more closely with local governments to prevent sprawl, and he supported the district's attempts to allow businesses to offset unavoidable emissions by paying for them to be reduced elsewhere.
Oil industry emissions have gone down by more than 99 percent since the early 1990s, according to the district. The district also touted its record of having cut 57 percent of pollution from stationary sources, which are the emissions under its control.
Those numbers failed to impress several speakers, who said the district could net more emissions than it has. They criticized the district's recent dairy rule, which they said fails to yield meaningful reductions in emissions.
Lawyers for Earthjustice and the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment pointed out that state and federal agencies are projected to significantly slash pollution from mobile sources by 2015, while increased smog-forming volatile organic compound pollution from dairy cows and other sources is projected to cause a net increase in that kind of stationary emission by 2015. That's according to the district's own data.
"There is more that can be done at the district level," said Paul Cort, a staff attorney with Earthjustice in Oakland. "It's not going to help us to continue to pass the buck."
Cort's comments reflected the "elitist mentality in the Bay Area and Sacramento," said Seyed Sadredin, the district's top administrator.
Most stationary sources of pollution have been squeezed to the limit, he said. Even if they all disappeared tomorrow the district wouldn't meet its 2013 deadline to comply with the new federal smog standard, he said. If the valley is to come close to this ambitious deadline, the district will need reductions from all quarters -- cars, trucks, farms, factories and households, he said.