Air Pollution San Bernardino County

On those hot and smoggy days in the cities down below--and this summer is proving worse than last--just imagine the clean air embracing this San Bernardino Mountains resort community, as bucolic as any. That's what you'll have to do, because this little town--with its cabins and A-frame homes, its lovely, lofty pines and its little lake enjoyed by anglers and paddle-boaters alike--is enveloped in more ozone than any other place in Southern California.

The warning signs are everywhere: smog so thick that kids are losing lung capacity; the state's highest rates of year-round schooling; rapidly worsening traffic.

The 1990 smog season, which runs from May until October, may be the cleanest on record, according to preliminary monitoring reports by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The district on Wednesday credited favorable weather conditions and tighter pollution controls for the air-quality gains. "We've had far less (smog) than expected," AQMD Executive Officer James M. Lents said.

On those hot and smoggy days in the cities down below--and this summer is proving worse than last--just imagine the clean air embracing this San Bernardino Mountains resort community, as bucolic as any. That's what you'll have to do, because this little town--with its cabins and A-frame homes, its lovely, lofty pines and its little lake enjoyed by anglers and paddle-boaters alike--is enveloped in more ozone than any other place in Southern California.

Garb Oil & Power Co. of Salt Lake City won a permit to begin construction of a controversial waste-to-energy plant that will burn scrapped tires in the San Bernardino County city of Rialto. The permit to build the 35-megawatt plant was issued by a South Coast Air Quality Management District hearing board, which heard testimony over a three-month period concerning the project's safety.

When I left this town nearly 20 years ago, I vowed never to return. Well, maybe for visits to my family, but not in any permanent sense. Something turned bitter in Colton, or in me, after the sky turned brown. It didn't matter which. All I knew was that Colton, a feisty, blue-collar community on the sunburned lip of the desert east of Los Angeles, had become to me a symbol of the ugliest side of America's economic boom after World War II.

The warning signs are everywhere: smog so thick that kids are losing lung capacity; the state's highest rates of year-round schooling; rapidly worsening traffic.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District posted first-stage smog alerts Tuesday in the Eastern San Fernando Valley and the Western San Gabriel Valley. The alerts were called at 2 p.m. when the Pollutants Standard Index levels reached 205 and 200, respectively. At 4 p.m., the AQMD posted additional alerts in parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has responsibility to control air pollution. It can seek court-imposed fines against polluters of from $25 to $25,000 a day based on such factors as the extent that emissions exceed legal limits, potential danger to the public, whether the violation was intentional, accidental or due to negligence and the company's history of violations. These are the 10 top penalties in October: COMPANY: L.A.

City and county officials from throughout the Inland Empire have banded together to legally challenge a proposed $70-million waste-to-energy plant that would burn scrapped tires in this San Bernardino County city. The unusual alliance was formed Monday in response to a unanimous decision Dec. 22 by a five-member South Coast Air Quality Management District hearing board to reverse the district's earlier denial of a request by Garb Oil & Power of Salt Lake City for a permit to build the plant.

Microscopic particles of air pollution, largely from diesel and gasoline exhaust, cause an estimated 275 premature deaths from heart and lung ailments yearly in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, according to a new study by state health experts. Although research in other industrialized U.S. cities has linked early deaths to particulate pollution, the study is the first to focus on California.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has responsibility to control air pollution. It can seek court-imposed fines against polluters of from $25 to $25,000 a day based on such factors as the extent that emissions exceed legal limits, potential danger to the public, whether the violation was intentional, accidental or due to negligence and the company's history of violations. These are the 10 top penalties in October: COMPANY: L.A.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District posted first-stage smog alerts Tuesday in the Eastern San Fernando Valley and the Western San Gabriel Valley. The alerts were called at 2 p.m. when the Pollutants Standard Index levels reached 205 and 200, respectively. At 4 p.m., the AQMD posted additional alerts in parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

The 1990 smog season, which runs from May until October, may be the cleanest on record, according to preliminary monitoring reports by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The district on Wednesday credited favorable weather conditions and tighter pollution controls for the air-quality gains. "We've had far less (smog) than expected," AQMD Executive Officer James M. Lents said.

When I left this town nearly 20 years ago, I vowed never to return. Well, maybe for visits to my family, but not in any permanent sense. Something turned bitter in Colton, or in me, after the sky turned brown. It didn't matter which. All I knew was that Colton, a feisty, blue-collar community on the sunburned lip of the desert east of Los Angeles, had become to me a symbol of the ugliest side of America's economic boom after World War II.

Two men were charged Friday with a felony count of illegal disposal of hazardous materials and misdemeanor counts of operating an unlicensed crematory, the San Bernardino County district attorney's office said. The charges also accused David W. Sconce, 31, of Pasadena, owner of Oscar Ceramics in Hesperia, and John Daniel Pollerama, 27, of Hesperia, operator of that business, of having cremated more than one body at a time at the illegal crematory.

Two men were charged Friday with a felony count of illegal disposal of hazardous materials and misdemeanor counts of operating an unlicensed crematory, the San Bernardino County district attorney's office said. The charges also accused David W. Sconce, 31, of Pasadena, owner of Oscar Ceramics in Hesperia, and John Daniel Pollerama, 27, of Hesperia, operator of that business, of having cremated more than one body at a time at the illegal crematory.

A coalition of Inland Empire public agencies and residents have filed two lawsuits aimed at halting construction of a proposed waste-to-energy plant that would burn 10 million scrapped tires a year in Rialto.