Friday, April 16, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Clark County flunks air quality standards

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The EPA on Thursday made official what every Las Vegan already knows -- the valley has dirty air.

But Clark County has lots of company. Urban areas in 31 states -- counties that comprise more than half the nation's population -- failed to meet federal air quality standards.

The county was barely in violation of the Environmental Protection Agency's new, tougher standard for ground-level ozone, which helps cause smog. The county had a "basic" level of pollution, the least-serious of five designations. The Los Angeles basin, by contrast, was found to have "severe" air pollution and was the only area in the worst category.

Clark County officials now have three years to submit an acceptable plan for curbing ozone. If they fail, the county could be forced to institute tougher controls on diesel equipment and vehicles, create ride-sharing programs and require the sale of cleaner-burning gasoline during the summer.

If those measures fail to satisfy the EPA, the county could ultimately lose some of its federal highway funding. However, such a measure is unlikely for an area with a low level of pollution, said Deborah Jordan, director of the Air Division for the EPA's Pacific Southwest Region in San Francisco.

The agency's new standard is based on an eight-hour, rather than a one-hour, measurement of ozone averaged over three years. It is also based on 80 parts per billion of ozone in the air, down from 120 parts per billion. One part per billion is about equal to one drop of water in an Olympic-size swimming pool.

The new standard was put in place because it was found to be more effective in combating health problems linked to ground-level ozone. Children, the elderly and those with respiratory ailments, such as asthma, are particularly vulnerable to high levels of the pollutant.

Christine Robinson, director of the county's Air Quality Management Department, will consider all possible measures to produce a plan that will receive EPA approval.

"I don't want to send the sky-is-falling message, but at the same time we're over the standard and need to find ways to bring our county back into compliance," Robinson said.

An extreme measure, though unlikely because of the small amount of ozone that puts Clark County in violation of the new standard, would involve revamping Southern Nevada's motor-vehicle smog check program. That program targets carbon monoxide emissions, but not oxides of nitrogen or volatile organic compounds that contribute to the ozone problem.

"At this time, I don't envision a change to the smog-check program, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't have to do that at some time in the future," she said.

Until Thursday, local air quality officials thought the area was borderline for compliance.

Clark County has 15 sites where ozone is measured. None of those sites have violated the one-hour standard of 120 parts per billion.

However, a July 9 reading from a monitoring station northeast of Craig Road and Rancho Drive exceeded the 80 parts per billion threshold. The reading of 89 parts per billion pushed the three-year average for that site to six parts per billion over the standard for the years 2001 to 2003.

Jordan, of the EPA's San Francisco office, said the agency would explore offering incentives to counties that reduce ozone levels before their deadlines for achieving the new standard.

Clark County, she said, might be able to curb ozone adequately with minimal control measures or voluntary programs while the plan is being developed. Clark County must comply with the eight-hour standard by 2009.

"We're going to look at the right mix of measures for this area. It's too early to say," Jordan said in an interview earlier this week.

"Clark County does a good job of developing air quality plans. We have every reason to anticipate that will happen" for ozone, she said.

The county has two other air quality compliance plans pending final approval by the EPA. One is for carbon monoxide, a wintertime pollutant that stems from vehicle emissions and combustion processes. The other is for dust or particulate matter emissions.

Both plans have been finalized and proposed for EPA approval, which Jordan hopes will happen in the next couple of months.

Robinson said the first task in developing an ozone plan will be to determine the sources of the problem. The department has three major studies under way to determine ozone sources in the Las Vegas Valley.

"At this point we have a lot of work to do to understand our unique ozone challenges in Clark County," she said.

Unlike other areas of the country, where industrial operations are significant contributors, the county's population of industrial sources tends to be lower, Robinson said.

There are about 650 gasoline dispensing stations in the county that, combined, emit 1,100 tons of volatile organic compounds annually, according to the department's records.

Acting under court order, the EPA identified all or parts of 474 counties that either have air that is too dirty or have pollution that causes neighboring counties to fail the air quality test.

The new standards were adopted in 1997 but were delayed from taking effect for four years because of a lengthy court challenge by industry and states. They were upheld by the Supreme Court in February 2001. Environmental and public health groups sued to force government into action.

EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt said it would be unfair to say that dirty air is a national problem. "There may be a few areas where that phrase applies, but there aren't many," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.