June 21, 2001
To Include More Stringent Measures
The Southland’s air quality agency today adopted a more stringent dust
control plan for the Coachella Valley to reduce particulate pollution levels and
protect residents’ health.
"This plan builds on the nationally recognized, proactive steps that the
Coachella Valley has taken for years to reduce dust levels," said Barry
Wallerstein, executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management
District.
"It also will prevent the federal government from potentially imposing
requirements that could have stifled future growth in the Valley."
In a public hearing conducted simultaneously in Palm Desert and Diamond Bar,
AQMD’s Governing Board unanimously approved the plan in a 9-0 vote.
After meeting the federal health standard for particulate pollution from 1992
to 1998, dust levels in the Coachella Valley slightly exceeded the standard
during 1999 to 2001 and caused the area to miss a 2001 deadline to attain the
standard. A building boom and drought contributed to the pollution increase. The
federal health standard is 50 micrograms of PM10 per cubic meter of
air on an annual average basis.
Particulate pollution, also known as PM10, is comprised of
particles about 1/7 the diameter of a human hair that obscure visibility and
evade the respiratory system’s defense mechanisms to lodge deep in lungs.
Exposure to unhealthful levels of PM10 is associated with
exacerbation of chronic respiratory diseases, increased hospitalizations and
even premature deaths.
In the Coachella Valley, PM10 is primarily comprised of windblown
dust from land development activities, agricultural tilling, unpaved roads and
dirt on paved roadways that is suspended in the air when vehicles drive over it.
"Under this plan, all dust sources -- from construction to farming to local
government -- will share equitably in further reducing particulate pollution,
Wallerstein said.
New measures in the plan include requirements for:
- A designated worker to monitor dust at large construction sites;
- Further reducing dust tracked out from construction sites by vehicles;
- Ensuring limited access to vacant lands;
- Stabilizing or paving of unpaved shoulders, medians and unpaved roads; and
- Additional dust control of unpaved parking lots.
The Mobile Source Emission Reduction Review Committee recently made $1
million available for reducing PM10 road dust in the Coachella
Valley. AQMD also will continue to work with the federal government to make
funding available to local governments for dust control.
AQMD prepared the plan this year after conducting several meetings with the
Coachella Valley Association of Governments, representatives from industry and
the public. Now that it has been adopted, AQMD will submit it for approval to
the California Air Resources Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In doing so AQMD will request an extension from EPA until 2006 for the Coachella
Valley to attain the PM10 standard.
Had AQMD not adopted a dust plan this month, EPA could have required strict
dust-control measures in the Coachella Valley that would have severely limited
growth. AQMD first developed a PM10 control plan for the valley in
1990, and updated it in 1994 and 1996.
AQMD now will assist local governments in incorporating the plan’s dust
control measures into a model ordinance, which cities will have to adopt by
October 2003.
AQMD is the air pollution control agency for Orange County and major portions
of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
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