This message got rejected by the listserv because "the recipient list; it
is too long." It did get received by the mayor and probably most of the
alders, since I did receive some replies back on it.
mtn
--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 07:48:04 -0500
Subject: Fw: Smog Woes Back on Horizon
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Our representatives in Madison goverment just don't seem to get it.
Their plans to facilitate unlimited numbers of motor vehicles into the
city, on East Washington Avenue and via other traffic conduits,
significantly degades the safety and quality of life for the residents
who live here. One has to wonder if they truely know who they have been
elected to serve.
"Streets and roads do not exist in isolation from their surroundings.
They pass through a landscape full of people who are somewhere rather
than going somewhere...."
- Conservation Law Foundation
http://danenet.danenet.org/bcp/shp.html
Mike Neuman
--------- Forwarded message ----------
Smog Woes Back on Horizon
After decades of improvement, ozone levels are up in the L.A. Basin, fed
by growing traffic and a lack of new pollution controls.
By Gary Polakovic
Times Staff Writer
July 15, 2003
The proliferation of pollution sources and regional growth as well as
setbacks in the development of key smog control technologies are
threatening to undo hard-won clean-air gains in the Los Angeles area.
A bout of unusually hot, stagnant weather brought the issue into sharp
focus late last week when the first Stage 1 smog alert since 1998 was
declared. However, there have been signs of trouble for the last few
years. Although days of unhealthful ozone have fallen about 70% since
1976, that trend has begun to reverse.
"I'm amazed at how we are getting to the end of technology to reduce
emissions," said Barry Wallerstein, executive officer for the South Coast
Air Quality Management District, the agency charged with controlling smog
from businesses in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino
counties. "It takes more work now to get the same progress. It's going to
be a difficult task and we do not have a margin of error. We need to
redouble our efforts and strengthen our programs."
Only a few years ago, California proclaimed that Houston had overtaken
Los Angeles as the nation's smog capital. But while officials boasted of
their success, some experts were pessimistic.
Arthur Winer, professor of environmental health sciences at the UCLA
school of public health, forecast in a report several years ago that
clean-air progress in the Los Angeles region would stall and begin to
reverse about this time.
"I was concerned about it. If you look at the way the emissions control
program has played out, we had really dramatic reductions in emissions in
the light-duty motor vehicle fleet. We had the tremendous advance of the
catalytic converters, the on-board computers, reformulation of gasoline
in the mid-1980s to mid-'90s. They were terrific gains and were able to
overcome the growth in vehicles and traffic over the past few decades.
But my concern is that I couldn't see on the horizon any further
approaches that would yield dramatic gains."
In 1983, there were 152 days in which ozone reached unhealthful levels in
the Los Angeles Basin. That number dropped to about 40 per year between
1998 and 2001. But it tipped up to 49 days last year and so far this year
there have been 36 days. That is double the number of days at this time
last year. And experts note that we haven't reached what is typically the
worst period for ozone: August and early September. Ozone, the main
component of smog, is a toxic, colorless gas that can scar lung tissue,
cause headaches and nausea, aggravate asthma and lead to long-term loss
of lung function.
At the root of the problem, experts argue, are too many people driving
too many cars, especially trucks and sport utility vehicles that are
subject to more lenient fuel efficiency standards than passenger cars.
Vehicles are responsible for 70% of the Los Angeles-area air pollutants.
Big trucks and SUVs now are responsible for half the new car sales in
California.
Alternative fuels and zero-emission cars have not materialized nearly as
quickly as air quality officials once anticipated.
In addition, local air quality regulators say there are too few controls
on too many big sources of pollution, including airports, ports and
ships.
Air quality officials are confronting new data that show they
underestimated the enormity of the cleanup task. Studies prepared by the
South Coast Air Quality Management District and the state Air Resources
Board revealed earlier this year far more vehicle tailpipe emissions than
air quality officials realized. They now say emissions of two key
smog-forming pollutants must be cut in half to meet the federally
mandated cleanup deadline of 2010, by which time the region should
experience zero days of unhealthful ozone. Air quality officials all but
concede that goal will be impossible to attain.
Nearly every day this summer ozone levels have soared to heights not seen
in years across inland valleys and mountains. The surge peaked last week
when a smog alert was declared in the Lake Arrowhead area as ozone
reached a concentration almost double the safe level.
Kids at the Boys and Girls Club of the Mountain Communities in Crestline
were kept out of the water at Lake Gregory and kept indoors playing games
for hours Thursday after worried leaders noticed that children were
having difficulty breathing and seemed exhausted.
A few hundred yards down the lakeshore, a small tan shack and a shiny,
round metal contraption next to it sat tucked under tall pines � the smog
monitoring station in the bucolic mountain town, near where the smog
alert was declared last week.
"People expect to come up to a pristine, clean, cool, green mountain
paradise," said Ed Eddingfield, executive director of the Boys and Girls
Club. "It is, but it's paradise with smog right now."
Ozone levels remained high across the L.A. Basin on Monday, though not
high enough to trigger another smog alert.
Environmentalists charge that air quality officials backed off after
posting tremendous successes during the 1990s.
"This is outrageous. We are sliding back, unfortunately. It has to do a
lot with the agencies on all levels not being as aggressive as they can
be, especially the state Air Resources Board and the EPA," said Todd
Campbell, policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air.
Earlier this year, Congress decided against raising the fuel efficiency
standard for passenger vehicles, including SUVs, in response to
automakers' claims that vehicle safety would be compromised and to union
worries about auto workers' job security.
To get bigger cuts in tailpipe emissions, California regulators had hoped
that by now there would be widespread use of alternative-fuel vehicles,
including cars that run on natural gas as well as electric vehicles and
hybrid cars that are powered by both electricity and gasoline.
Some of those vehicles were not embraced by consumers and others have
been much slower coming off the assembly line than originally
anticipated.
The state Air Resources Board announced several years ago that it would
begin requiring existing big diesel vehicles to install pollution-control
devices similar to cars, but to date the board has not adopted a single
rule. The board is scheduled to consider its first diesel retrofit rule,
a measure for trash-hauling trucks, later this month.
"They were supposed to have done this years ago, but there's just strong
political pressure against this," Campbell said.
Meanwhile, some of the region's major polluters, including the ports of
Long Beach and Los Angeles and the region's five major airports, have
largely escaped stringent controls. At the harbor alone, emissions from
ships produce the smog equivalent of nearly 1 million cars daily.
The Bush administration recently decided not to seek stringent emission
controls for big ships, sought by air quality officials along the
California coast. An effort by the Air Quality Management District to
assess fines for use of onshore diesel equipment that polluted was
recently defeated in the Legislature.
State regulators recently approved a plan to cut emissions from airport
ground equipment by two-thirds, but Los Angeles air quality officials say
the measure does not go far enough.
Growth patterns in the suburbs, too, are causing smog problems. Over the
last few years, the worst of the ozone is occurring far from urban areas
in the San Bernardino Mountains and Santa Clarita Valley. Air quality
officials believe that, as suburbs become denser in such places as
Valencia, West Covina and Rancho Cucamonga, more smog sources � including
businesses, homes and cars � are created.
Chemicals that have been reformulated to reduce their smog-forming
capabilities still form ozone, albeit more slowly and farther downwind
from the sources. Those chemicals are used widely in products ranging
from paint to solvents to cleansers. Household sources alone release 108
tons of smog-forming emissions daily and are the second-leading source of
such emissions in the basin.
Next month, air quality officials will hold a public hearing in Diamond
Bar on a new comprehensive smog cleanup plan for the region. But business
leaders, environmentalists and even some air quality officials
acknowledge that the plan will fall short of achieving healthful air by
the end of the decade.
"It's not aggressive enough," said Bob Wyman, an attorney for the
Regulatory Flexibility Group, which represents, Northrop Grumann,
Chevron, Texaco, Reliant Energy, Irvine Co. and Toyota, among others.
"Were running out of time. It's time for the agencies to start thinking
outside the box. We need to be more creative and use a different
toolbox."
*
________________________________________________________________
The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand!
Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!
_______________________________________________
Bikies mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
