TROY ANDERSON, Staff Writer
Public health professionals and environmentalists on Thursday urged
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen
ozone-pollution-control standards in Southern California, saying it
would dramatically reduce the death rate caused by smog.
At an EPA hearing in Los Angeles -- one of five hearings scheduled
nationwide to consider strengthening proposed air-quality standards for
ozone pollution in smog -- speakers said the higher standard would
reduce the mortality rate from 14 to two people per 1 million residents.
"Here in California, we have eight of the 10 most
ozone-polluted counties in the entire nation," said Jason Barbose,
an advocate for Environment California.
"If we reduced the ozone levels to the middle range of what
the EPA science advisers have suggested, we would see a (huge) decrease
in mortality," he said.
Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA sets clean air quality standards
at levels that protect public health.
In 1997, the EPA set the standard for ozone at 80 parts per billion
over eight hours.
Last year, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, a group of
expert outside scientists who advise the EPA, unanimously recommended
strengthening the ozone standard to a range of 60-70 parts per billion.
In June, the EPA proposed a range of 70-75 parts per billion.
Jack Stewart, president of the California Manufacturers and
Technology Association, said industrial companies in the state already
spend $27 billion a year to improve air quality and have made
significant progress toward reaching the standard of 80 parts per
billion by 2013, reducing ozone levels 21 percent since 1980.
"The question is what is the cost benefit to continue to
ratchet these numbers down," Stewart said. "We still
haven't achieved the (80 parts per billion). And there are studies
showing that moving to (70 parts per billion) will have little or no
change on public health.
"So we just think we should go slow before we wreck our
economy and start losing even more manufacturing jobs to other nations.
We have lost 3 million manufacturing jobs nationwide since 2000,
including 400,000 here in California."
Stewart and Barbose were among the speakers at the hearing in
downtown Los Angeles.
Ozone pollution forms when hydrocarbon vapors and nitrogen oxides
-- from sources such as cars, power plants, trains, ships, chemical
plants, refineries, factories and gas stations -- react to sunlight and
heat. It can burn people's lungs and airways, causing health
problems ranging from coughing and wheezing to asthma attacks and even
premature death.
Children, teenagers, senior citizens and people with asthma,
bronchitis, emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are
particularly vulnerable to it, but so are healthy adults, said Matt
Keener, regional vice president for the American Lung Association of
California.
"When you go outside on a high-ozone-level day, particularly
if you are an athlete, work outdoors a lot, jog and play tennis, you
will experience an actual burning sensation in your airways,"
Keener said. "That's what people refer to as ozone burn.
It's dangerous. It makes people sick, and it kills people. This is
why we must have a stricter standard that actually protects our
health."
