Are Valley ozone totals exaggerated?

Statistics overinflate Valley's air issues, expert says.

Sunday, Nov. 09, 2008

The San Joaquin Valley led the nation in ozone violations this year with 127, but no one person likely experienced all those bad-air days.

That's because the total includes many days when only one or two cities had violations. On those days, most of the Valley's residents were not breathing unhealthy air.

One expert says the total exaggerates the region's pollution and health exposure.

"The number 127 is meaningless," said Joel Schwartz, a Sacramento-based analyst who studies such issues for the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C. "But this kind of number is used every year to talk about air pollution."

Fresno residents, for instance, were exposed to high ozone on 52 days. Bakersfield had 40 bad days. And in Stockton, residents saw only four bad days.

Government officials reply that Schwartz is not telling the whole story.

They say many residents in a wide area are affected when one monitor shows a violation. And the total number of violations is not the only number used to describe air quality, they said.

Industries have made the same argument about the government exaggerating pollution effects, but Schwartz has been among the most vocal and consistent critics in the past several years. The debate could take place anywhere in America, but it is perhaps most dramatic in the 25,000-square-mile Valley, the country's largest air basin.

Stockton is a case in point. As part of the San Joaquin Valley, Stockton is under the same dirty-air category as Arvin, known as the nation's smoggiest spot.

Arvin, which is 235 miles south of Stockton, had 103 ozone violations, which occur in warm weather.

But even in Stockton, businesses must invest a lot of money each year to buy the same clean-air technology for boilers or engines as the rest of the Valley.

"Regulators are in the business to find new dragons to slay," Schwartz said. "They depend on having a problem to solve."

In his book, published this year, he says air officials, environmental groups and the media often mislead the public. The book is titled "Air Quality in America: A dose of reality on air pollution levels, trends, and health risks."

Government air officials say Schwartz's view is at the opposite extreme of environmentalists who emphasize health problems and push for more regulation.

"He's selectively choosing facts and figures," said Seyed Sadredin, executive director of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. "My argument is that you have to look at the problem in its entirety."

Sadredin said that if Arvin's monitor records a violation, it means many surrounding towns and cities are having a problem, too. It isn't limited to the 16,000 people in Arvin, southeast of Bakersfield.

Officials also say that Stockton's air pollution is carried downwind to cities such as Merced.

As part of the Valley's air basin, Stockton should be a part of the air cleanup, they say.

To comply with federal standards, every Valley monitor must show that the air is within the health threshold, said Karen Magliano, chief of the air-quality data branch at the California Air Resources Board in Sacramento. Some areas will have healthy air before others.

"There is incremental success in the Valley," she said. "Some areas will come into attainment before others, but they all must come into attainment."

She said other measures of air quality indicate the Valley is showing moderate improvement. She said ozone concentrations, for instance, have been getting lower over the last several years.

Sadredin said Valley air officials often tell the public of cleanup successes in the past 15 years, preferring not to put a negative spin on the region's air quality. The Valley's air is cleaner now than it was 10 years ago.

But this year, because statewide forest fires have added so much pollution to the air, it has been difficult not to sound the alarm.

The district also has begun using the new, stricter federal standard for ozone, resulting in more violations than last year. Under the old standard, the Valley had 65 bad days last year -- which is about half the total under the new standard. So it may seem as though the air is worse.

"Everything seems to have been working against us this year," Sadredin said.

"But over the long run, there has been progress."

Health advocates and community activists said Schwartz's analysis is hard to believe. They said air pollution has contributed to a Fresno County childhood asthma rate that ranks among the highest in the state.

As a result of poor air quality, treatment of asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory illness has become an industry in the Valley, they said.

Studies have connected air pollution with lung and heart disease as well as early mortality, said Liza Bolaños, coordinator for the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition, a nonprofit group representing public health and environmental organizations.

She said, "Mothers, fathers and researchers don't think the truth about the air pollution is being exaggerated."