Air Pollution Control District

On one side was the Environmental Coalition, a group of about 100 Ventura County residents who pay dues of $10 a year and put out a newsletter lambasting local polluters. On the other side was Phillips Petroleum Co., a giant oil conglomerate whose $12 billion in assets ranks it 32nd in Fortune magazine's list of the country's 500 largest corporations.

Clarence Walthall probably won't get the notice in the mail from the county until early next year, but he's already thinking about it. Walthall is the operations manager of Petoseed Co. in Saticoy--"in charge of everything that doesn't have to do with seeds," as he puts it--and the notice he's expecting will require his company to change the commuting habits of the 160 people who work there. Walthall has a few ideas already: preferred parking places for car-poolers, flexible hours for some employees, awards for those departments with the most ride-sharing.

San Diego County air-pollution officials announced Wednesday that residents fed up with smoking vehicles on the county's highways have registered nearly 5,000 complaints over the past three months by calling a toll-free hot line to the Air Pollution Control District. Anyone seeing a smoking automobile can call the 3-month-old hot line, 800-331-3383 and report the vehicle's description and license number, and where and when the violation was seen. Smoking vehicles represent a relatively small percentage of the 1.7 million registered vehicles in the county, but their contribution to regional smog is extremely high, according to Richard Sommerville, an air-pollution control officer.

Ventura County air pollution officials may soon have the power to order reduction of smog-forming pollutants at four offshore oil rigs, which would end a long battle over control of offshore air pollution. The Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a procedure that allows the county's Air Pollution Control District to impose the same air pollution controls on the offshore rigs that it already does on onshore operations.

Ventura County air pollution officials are proposing tough anti-smog measures that would triple the number of new commercial and residential developments that must be scaled down or modified to reduce the air pollution they generate. Fast-food restaurants, gas stations with 12 pumps, convenience stores and even movie theaters could be required to submit environmental impact reports under the new regulations, according to Air Pollution Control District officials.

The county's top pollution-control official Tuesday sharply criticized a countywide program to ease traffic congestion, saying it falls far short of meeting state air standards and fails to follow the basic requirements laid out for it. The plan drafted by the San Diego Assn. of Governments "was biased against transit expansion, a key transportation control measure," said Richard Sommerville, executive director of the Air Pollution Control District.

In one of the first and most far-reaching studies of its kind, Harvard University has begun monitoring air quality in Simi Valley and 23 other North American communities to investigate the health effects of acid pollutants. The $3-million project, funded by the U.S. and Canadian governments, will focus on whether airborne acids, which come from power plants and automobile exhaust, cause respiratory problems in school-age children. Those pollutants are the same compounds found in acid rain, which is believed to harm vegetation and the facades of buildings.

City officials welcomed Halaco Engineering to a beach on the community's southern tip 35 years ago. In a city then thirsting for growth, the metal recycler seemed a good fit: The site was a former dump, it was far from where people lived and from potable ground water, and the company would bring dozens of new jobs. Now, however, the factory and the huge slag heap growing next to it are viewed as the biggest environmental thorn in the city's side.

The single most powerful public agency in the Southland might well be the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Yet, I bet you couldn't give me the names of the chairman or the vice chairman of the district board. They're Riverside County Supervisor Norton Younglove and Yorba Linda Mayor Henry Wedaa. I didn't know either until I looked them up. The district's political anonymity is deceptive.

A few days after Congress shelved federal plans to clean up Ventura County's smoggy skies, business leaders and clean-air advocates urged federal regulators to crack down on ocean freighters, interstate trucks and other pollution sources that are beyond local control. Business, environmental and local government representatives who came together to craft a local smog-control plan said Thursday that they cannot meet clean-air standards by 2005 without the help of the U. S. government.