Ozone battle heating up

Denver area faces struggle to meet tougher standard

By Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Darin McGregor / The Rocky

UP Freddie Bryant hooks an emissions hose to a vehicle that he was testing Wednesday at the Air Care Colorado Envirotest station in Arvada. Such tests might be done statewide one day.

The Denver region will need to take dramatic new steps - possibly mandating more costly gasoline, tougher vehicle emission tests and more controls on industry - to cut air pollution in the wake of an EPA decision to tighten the standard for ground-level ozone.

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Stephen Johnson said Wednesday that the new nationwide federal health standard would cut allowable ozone levels from the current 80 parts per billion to 75 ppb - a move criticized as too weak by environmentalists and expensive and unrealistic by industry.

"Today, the EPA is meeting the requirements of the Clean Air Act by signing the most stringent . . . standards for ozone ever," Johnson said in a teleconference.

While many health advocates argue that the change is too small, the tighter standard will send Denver and myriad other cities struggling to figure out how to drive down further the air pollutants that combine with heat and sunlight to form ozone.

The tougher standard springs from scientific reviews, including that of EPA's own science advisers, finding that the current health limit failed to protect the public health. EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee advised the standard be set in the range of 60 to 70 ppb.

Ozone exposure is most troubling to those with respiratory conditions such as asthma and emphysema. Medical research has found that the pollutant reduces lung function even in healthy adults, and can stunt lung development in teenagers.

A steep climb

Last summer, the Denver area fell out of compliance with the existing 80 ppb standard, and pollution regulators are working on efforts to get the region back into clean air status. In coming years, they will have to dig even deeper to push the metro area down to the 75 ppb level.

In Denver, and elsewhere, it will prove challenging. Every fuel-burning industry, every combustion engine and every vehicle owner could feel the effects.

"When you get these standards as low as they're going, it's not just the low-hanging fruit that's going to be dealt with - you have to look at people's everyday activities," said Stan Dempsey, a lobbyist for the Colorado Petroleum Association.

Ken Lloyd, executive director of the Regional Air Quality Council, an agency charged with cutting metro area pollution, wouldn't speculate on what measures might be needed, but acknowledged it would be challenging for the region - and the rest of the country - to attain.

"It's clear it's going to require a combination of federal, regional, state and local strategies," Lloyd said, suggesting that new standards for engines and vehicles would have to come from the federal government. "This isn't just one a problem at one level."

Indeed, the tighter limit is expected to quadruple the number of counties nationally in violation of ozone standards - from 85 to 345, and it will pose exceptional challenges in areas such as Houston, Southern California and the Northeast, where ozone levels are already significantly over the 80 ppb standard.

Aside from the health effects, failing to meet EPA pollution standards can result in federally imposed sanctions, such as withholding highway money or adding red tape before new industry can enter a region. Most of all, the failure to meet EPA health standards creates a stigma that can make an area less attractive to businesses and others considering relocation.

But Denver and other cities will have many years, in some cases more than two decades, to comply with the tougher limits, Johnson said. In that time, they could be aided by various federal clean air rules, such as limits on diesel emissions, that are taking effect, or will unfold.

Greens disappointed

Environmentalists and public health advocates were disappointed that the standard wasn't set lower, and some accused Johnson of ignoring the agency's own science advisors, a charge that Johnson denied.

"It's a good first step in the right direction, but clearly we have more to do here," said Jeremy Nichols, an activist for Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action, of the new limit.

Nichols said that the new limits would require states to work together to cut pollution at a regional level because part of the ozone in any region's air moves in from other population centers or industrial areas, such as oil and gas fields.

That could affect a wide swath of industries, including power plants, oil refineries and gas drilling sites. It almost surely will affect individuals as well, who may find themselves encouraged to use cleaner lawn mowers and see their cars face stricter tailpipe tests.

Dempsey said he foresees the possibility of vehicle emission tests throughout Colorado. At the same time, Dempsey said, industry will have to take on more burden.

"We realize more attention will be paid to oil and gas activities, and we're prepared to work with the agencies to accomplish what their goals are," he said.

What's next

* Now: Regional air pollution officials are trying to craft measures to bring ozone levels below the existing standard of 80 ppb. A plan is expected to be completed by year's end.

* Future: The EPA won't designate dirty cities under the new ozone standard of 75 ppb until 2010, and then won't require a plan to clean up the air until 2013. After that, cities may have as long as 20 years to comply, EPA officials said Thursday.

• March 13, 2008

  5:44 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  TeresaBinstock writes:

  Wikepedia provides an excellent overview of ozone, including a brief summary of adverse health effects (1). Several peer-reviewed articles about ozone and health can be enjoyed online (eg, 2-6). The short-term financial benefits of allowing ozone levels that injure some among us needs be balanced against health costs and other ramifications of ozone-associated pathologies.

  1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone
  2) http://tinyurl.com/24a7wx
  3) http://tinyurl.com/36o6b5
  4) http://tinyurl.com/3x7x3a
  5) http://pats.atsjournals.org/cgi/repri...
  6) http://tinyurl.com/2vt7pp

• March 13, 2008

  7:45 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Art writes:

  If we send all industry out of the state, and out of the country, we can then come close to these new more stringent standards. Did you ever wonder why so many industries are locating elsewhere? These rules, and the incredibly inconsistent enforcement of them, are driving more and more industries to Mexico, Canada and more far flung areas.

• March 13, 2008

  8:13 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  greenleaf writes:

  Art,

  My understanding is that the industry tipping the ozone balance on the front range is the oil and gas industries drill sites with their electrical generators running 24 hours a day. These small engines are notorious polluters. Maybe we need to attract industries that pollute less such as the wind ( see article in today's Rocky ) and solar power plants and factories that are moving to the state.

  Ozone has serious impacts on respiratory health and shouldn't be ignored just because it is somehow inconvenient for industry.

• March 13, 2008

  9:31 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  TeresaBinstock writes:

  Various pathologies are associated with industrial and vehicular pollutants. Even national parks are severely tainted (1). Western civilization's growth economy is worshiped as if sacred, but its effects are beginning to resemble that of a toddler wearing a an increasingly soiled diaper. In the long run, the U.S. will be stronger if we don't foul our own nest and, while so doing, and if we begin to minimize weakening our nation's strength with pollutant-associated illnesses.

  1. http://www.nature.nps.gov/air/Studies...

• March 13, 2008

  12:08 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  kimm1970 writes:

  I find this whole line of rhetoric redundant and lacking, we need to worry about more than just the ozone and this state does little to service anything else.

  Stop stomping on the one area and look into options besides that area. You so easily jump on one or more bandwagons, but you never give options or realistic ideas. You might find with more options, you will have less people willing to fight you.

  I wonder how many of you will be so willing to attack vehicle/company emissions when those companies chose to leave. Thereby, possibly leaving you without a job.

• March 13, 2008

  3:39 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  greenleaf writes:

  kimm,

  You are employing a false duality: Colorado is a very desirable place to live. If the dirty energy companies leave, other, cleaner companies will come in to fill the void. You can bank on that!

  Here is a more accurate duality: To work you have to be able to breathe!