State smog test leaves polluters on the road < Previous page

One bill that did make it into law allows the air district to accept clean donated cars and offer them free to owners of cars that fail Smog Check. But it has an annual cap of 200 cars.

So all that's left, for now, is the Valley air district's plan to buy back 600 polluting cars over the next three years. Many of those 600 cars may not even turn out to be gross polluters.

The district plans to identify likely candidates from Smog Check records and other data. Owners of those cars will be invited into the program and given a new smog test, a step that makes the buyback program "creditable." But even if their cars pass that test, the owners can still hand over the keys and collect $1,000 on the assumption that the car might be a high polluter anyway.

On Sept. 15, ValleyCAN brought its testing equipment, Bureau of Automotive Repair technicians and Fresno City College automotive service students to the college campus for one of its "Tune In and Tune Up" events. It offered free smog tests and issued $500 repair vouchers for vehicles that failed the tests.

One early failure was a 1994 Ford Explorer that spewed 1,260 parts per million of hydrocarbons -- unburned gasoline -- at idle. That's several hundred times the emissions of a new car. Its carbon monoxide levels were also high. And its "check engine" light shone steadily on the dash.

"It's been on for eight years," said the Explorer's owner, John Channel of Laton. "Nobody's ever been able to figure out why."

Channel left with a $500 voucher and a list of needed repairs, downloaded from his vehicle's computer by two of the college's students. His was one of 351 vehicles tested that Saturday morning. Of those, 229 -- almost two-thirds of those tested -- failed and qualified for a repair voucher.

Since the ValleyCAN effort is voluntary and run by a nonprofit, its emissions reductions don't help the Valley meet its Clean Air Act burden. But even when a buyback or repair program is creditable, as the Valley district's buyback effort would be, only a small share of the credits can be claimed by the sponsor. Most go to the Smog Check program, on the questionable theory that the polluting vehicle would be found and fixed at its next regular Smog Check even if it weren't repaired or junked first.

Stedman nevertheless hopes that a project now under way in Southern California will build public support for attacking gross polluters in general and using his remote sensing device in particular.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District plans to spend $4 million on an incentive-based program to find and repair or junk more than 1,000 gross polluters in the next year. The district will use remote sensing devices to take more than 1 million measurements of vehicles.

Owners of vehicles that appear to be gross polluters will then be invited for a free Smog Check test. Doing the second test ensures that the district at least gets credit for any emission reductions until the vehicle's next regularly scheduled Smog Check. Owners of failing vehicles can get $500 for repairs or $1,000 for scrapping their cars if repairs prove too costly.

According to the district, it's the first government program in the nation to couple remote sensing with a repair or scrapping program. Participation is voluntary for owners of vehicles flagged by the sensors.

Stedman views the South Coast program as a challenge to other agencies, including the Valley district and the state. And as a sign that sentiment may be turning in his favor: "I think it may be looking better now than ever before."

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