Battling L.a.'s Smog

By JEANNE McDOWELL

James Lents knows better than anyone else how difficult it will be to clean up the smoggy skies of Southern California. As executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), Lents is charged with enforcing antipollution regulations in the 6,600-sq.-mi. area that encompasses Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties. The 12 million people, 8 million motor vehicles and 31,000 businesses in the area spew 1,246 tons of noxious gases into the air every day.

The southland's smoggy air largely results from poor atmospheric ventilation in the bowl-shaped South Coast Air Basin, where an "inversion layer" traps pollutants under a lid of hot air. In the daytime, ocean breezes waft pollution inland all across the basin. Then sunshine triggers a photochemical reaction that produces the highest ozone concentration in the U.S. Established in 1977, the district aims to bring Southern California's air quality into compliance with federal standards by 2010. If the agency falls short of that goal, Washington could take over. Given the terrain and the hodgepodge of local governments involved, only a regional agency stands a chance of developing a coherent smog-fighting strategy.

In 1989 the district developed an ambitious strategy that sets stringent emission levels for everything from motor vehicles and power plants to consumer products. To curb the southland's addiction to automobiles, businesses with more than 100 employees must provide incentives for car pooling and riding public transportation; the plan will soon be extended to firms with 50 or more workers. Companies that do not comply with the rules ( risk fines as high as $25,000 a day.

Another district initiative, however, has angered environmentalists. A proposed "market-permit program" would allow businesses that meet emission- reduction targets to sell unused "emission credits" to firms that have failed to do so. Critics charge that the program would encourage well-heeled companies to buy their way out of compliance instead of reducing pollution.

While air quality in Southern California has improved substantially, the AQMD's record is mixed. For one thing, the agency has postponed its deadline for meeting federal standards from the original 2007 deadline. "We have made progress, and the air is much better than it was 20 years ago," says Lentz, "but this is still the dirtiest air in the nation."