DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS

From my home town of San Antonio, where my young nephew lives and plays soccer and almost certainly does a fair amount of breathing, an article about the air we all must breathe.  as ibspiccoli asks in an excellent post - how can anyone say they're not interested in politics?  do they not realize it involves the very water they drink, air they breathe, future of our planet?  in this journal i so often feel i'm preaching to the choir - we need to get out and sing to those who have not yet heard the choir, who don't even know it exists.  how do we do that?  how are you doing it?

Clear Skies No More for Millions as Pollution Rule Expands
    By Jennifer 8. Lee
    New York Times

    Tuesday 13 April 2004

    SAN ANTONIO, April 8 - More than half the nation's population lives in or around areas that violate clean air standards, according to a list to be released on April 15 by the federal government.

    The list is a long-delayed result of federal standards revised in 1997 and will sweep beyond traditional smog-filled metropolises like Houston, Los Angeles and New York to encompass smaller cities like Little Rock, Ark., and Birmingham, Ala., where the air appears relatively clear. In San Antonio, which has begun taking steps to combat air pollution, the local government broadcasts warnings telling children not to play outside even on some days when the skies are azure blue.

    Rural communities will be affected along with at least seven national parks, including the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee, Acadia in Maine and Yosemite in California.

    On April 15, the Environmental Protection Agency will release a list of about 500 counties that violate or contribute to violations of ground-level ozone, more than double the number listed under older standards. Ground-level ozone, which is odorless and invisible, is a major component of smog on hot summer days. Prolonged exposure causes the equivalent of sunburn to the lungs.

    The revised federal standards have wide economic and environmental implications and the makeup of the list has been the subject of lobbying in Washington. Areas in violation face the loss of federal money for roads. Industrial development can be barred in those areas unless companies prove that they would not make pollution worse.

    "A lot of counties feel if they are in, it will have negative impact on their economic development plans," said Senator George V. Voinovich, Republican of Ohio. Like many members of Congress, he said he has been deluged by letters and calls from local officials worried that the revised standards "will cause the loss of jobs, restrict economic growth, discourage plant location and encourage manufacturers to move overseas."

    Since passage of the 1970 Clean Air Act, the country's air is significantly cleaner, but scientific research continues to ratchet down the amount of pollution that is considered healthy to breathe. One reason for the dirty-air designations is "to communicate to the residents of the areas that the air they are breathing is not as healthy as our national standards," said Michael O. Leavitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, which makes the determinations.

    The new designations are a result of a process that started in 1997 when the Clinton administration tightened standards for ozone and fine particulate soot, which lodges in the lungs and contributes to lung disease, heart attacks and premature death.

    The old ozone rules measured peak exposures over one-hour periods. But dozens of studies showed that persistent exposure to low levels of ozone damages the respiratory and immune systems. The tighter standards measure ozone over eight hours.

    Industry challenges to the revised standards rose to the Supreme Court, which unanimously rejected the arguments in 2001 and allowed the E.P.A. to begin the multiyear process to determine which areas were in violation. On April 15, the agency will release areas in violation of the ozone standards. In December, it will announce which counties exceed limits for soot.

    A number of states contend that the revised standards are so strict that even if their counties drastically reduced their own air emissions, pollution from other states, notably power plant pollution that blows long distances, would still push them into violation.

    "There are counties that could take all their cars off the roads, close their factories and clean up their power plants and still not be in attainment," Mr. Leavitt said at a Senate hearing last month. To combat that problem, the agency has proposed reducing pollution from coal-fired plants in the eastern United States by allowing plants to buy and sell the right to emit sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, with a lowering of overall pollution limits over time.

    Almost 300 counties are expected to be deemed in violation of the revised ozone rules on Thursday. But about 200 neighboring counties will face restrictions because they are considered contributors to the ozone pollution in the counties that violate the rules. In all, about 160 million people will live in areas affected by the revised standards, up from 110 million affected by the old rules.

    Many states and locales are reviewing strategies that would intimately affect how people live — from cutting speed limits by 5 miles per hour, to discouraging house painting during summer months, to giving tax breaks to businesses that encourage telecommuting.

    "It will underscore vividly that almost all of our activities during the day directly or indirectly contribute to air pollution and smog levels," said William Becker, the executive director of the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators and the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials.

    States will have three years to come up with detailed plans on how they would reduce the two main ingredients of ground-level ozone: nitrogen oxides, which are emitted through combustion, and volatile organic compounds, gases that evaporate from gasoline and paints.

    Actions taken by some 30 metropolitan areas, including San Antonio, offer an early look at the kind of measures that will be adopted by states and cities over the next decade. These areas, which are in violation of the revised standards generally by slim margins, have signed agreements with the E.P.A. to reduce pollution early to avoid some of the regulatory consequences.

    In San Antonio, where tractor-trailers, Ford F-150 pickup trucks and chunky S.U.V.'s ring the city on the shimmering highways, local officials are looking for ways large and small to nibble away at air pollution.

    They are keen on maintaining a healthy-air designation, believing it helped them attract an $800 million Toyota plant last year while Dallas, a competitor, had additional regulatory burdens from clean-air violations.

    San Antonio has asked refineries to reformulate gasoline to lower car pollution. School districts have pushed the start of the academic year after the hottest parts of August, in part to reduce the need for air-conditioning and the pollution from electricity generation that produces it. Schools also are organizing students to walk to and from school in groups with parental chaperons to cut back on cars using the roads and idling in front of schools.

    Some companies are asking employees to bring lunch or eat in company cafeterias to cut down on traffic during the hottest part of the day. Some businesses are discouraging use of drive-through lanes, asking customers to park and come inside.

    "We are looking for small habit changes that people can keep up over a lifetime," said Dorothy Birch, who manages the ozone outreach programs for the Alamo Area Council of Governments. "There is no crumb too small."