City Tackles Dangerous Pollution Levels With New Measures

By Kelly Garrison
Features Editor

For years, the city has taken actions to resolve a nearly invisible problem that has become a habitual threat to the health of Long Beach residents.

Air pollution has skyrocketed in the city to dangerous levels mostly due to human activity. South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) spokesman Sam Atwood said it would take a consistent, region-wide effort to restore air quality in Long Beach.

“Each city has to do its part, or we won’t achieve clean air,” Atwood said of the problem.

Common sources include power plants, refineries, gas stations, household products and construction and transportation devices — especially those with internal combustion engines. A recent study by SCAQMD, which oversees Orange County and the urban portions of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, indicates that motorists in the region drive more than 332 million miles altogether every day, and that number is likely to increase.

“It gets to me when you hear things about changing light bulbs, but then no one talks about the cars on the freeway,” said Seventh District City Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga, SCAQMD governing board member of the Los Angeles County Western Region.

The largest pollutants in the city include the Port of Long Beach, trains, ships and vehicles. The city has made new laws to reduce toxic emissions from its vehicle fleet, street sweepers and garbage trucks with the use of alternative fuels.

“They pass in front of homes and traditionally would fuel diesel into neighborhoods as they stayed there,” Uranga said. “It has become a clean way of doing business now in the community.”

Environmental efforts, she explained, typically start with a request for assistance from outside agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency. Studies on the environment ultimately pave the way for grant assistance and projects.

A recent air quality study showed Long Beach in the center of a high-risk area for exposure to cancer-causing agents. The agency’s Multiple Air Toxics Exposure Study (MATES) III report indicated that downtown Long Beach had the worst air pollution in the city.

“Areas in and around Long Beach go off the scale,” Uranga said.

And cancer is only part of the threat.

Breathing in air pollution can cause short-term respiratory problems, such as watery eyes, coughing, headache and wheezing. It also can cause or exacerbate asthma, bronchitis, emphysema and cancer.

“Everybody has to breathe, and the best thing to do is to keep abreast of air quality forecasts,” Atwood said. “Take them into account, particularly if you have heart or lung disease, if you are a young child, work or exercise outdoors.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has named the region “an extreme ground-level ozone non-attainment area,” which means it is one of the smoggiest in the nation. Cities must be in compliance with federal standards for particulate matter by 2014 and for ozone by 2023. A significant part of that effort likely will include replacing diesel trucks with cleaner vehicles — and there are consequences of not doing so.

“(The government) can withhold highway funding and create restrictions before businesses can be established,” Atwood said. “But the real consequence is that the air isn’t healthy to breathe.”

Despite the high concentration of exhaust pollution in Long Beach, not all emissions stay within the city. Other toxins, particularly ozone and fine particulate matter, get swept 60 to 90 miles inland.

“The highest fine particulate matter concentrations are generally many miles downwind of the main source,” Atwood said. “You can’t think of it as if there is a curtain around your city. You’re talking about a very large area, where pollutants can sweep back and forth throughout counties. That’s why regional air districts like this were formed.”

SCAQMD will release details this month at www.aqmd.gov about a Lawn Mower Exchange Program that allows residents to exchange gasoline mowers for new, zero-emission battery electric mowers for $100. The mower has a $400 value, operates for 45 to 60 minutes on battery power.

To hear air pollution warnings for the area, call (800) 288-7664 or go online to www.aqmd.gov.