Nothing but Clear Skies for County . . . So Far

Heavy smog is a no-show this summer, continuing a trend that is gradually restoring clean air to Ventura County and threatening to erase the region’s stigma as an air pollution capital.

So far, not a single day has exceeded the federal one-hour ozone limit in 2000, a critical threshold that all smoggy communities are obliged to meet under the nation’s Clean Air Act. While that is an improvement over past years, Ventura County still has a “severe” smog problem that ranks it the eighth most polluted region in the nation, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

And summer smog season, which runs from May to October, can still pack a powerful wallop. The next two months are notoriously hot and sticky, and some of the worst air pollution may yet occur, say local air quality officials.

Indeed, this time last year, smog watchers were crossing their fingers, hoping heavy smog would stay away all season, only to be disappointed when it struck on two days.

“So far, this year is looking great,” said Richard H. Baldwin, the county’s air pollution control officer. “If it stayed this way for the next year and a half, we would be at attainment, but those are big ifs, with capital letters and big exclamation points. Weather could shift any time.”

The improvement this year, nonetheless, is dramatic and comes on the heels of several successive years of gains in air quality. For example, Simi Valley, the county’s smog hot spot, has violated the more stringent federal eight-hour standard 11 days this year and the super strict state limit, which no urban area in California is expected to meet any time soon, on 13 days.

Such numbers may sound high, but those tallies are down about 80% from 10 years ago, according to the county Air Pollution Control District. Similar improvements have occurred in Thousand Oaks and Ojai, two other smog zones, while ozone in Ventura, Piru and Oxnard has barely tipped the scales this year.

Richard Guevara, a volunteer at Port Hueneme Sportfishing, has traveled across the Santa Barbara Channel many times during the past 20 years, enjoying panoramic views of the county from offshore.

‘There’s lots of clean air this year,” Guevara said. ‘It looks pretty clean until the Santa Ana winds blow a brown cloud over the ocean.”

Stiff offshore winds, which typically coincide with the peak fire season, blow pollution from urban centers toward the coast in a role reversal that generally sullies the skies over Ventura County while clearing inland valleys. Those conditions probably won’t prevail until late October or so.

But before then, the county must get through the next 60 days, when hot temperatures and stagnant air--ideal conditions for smog formation--typically abound.

“August and September are coming and there are usually periods in those months when ozone is higher,” said Kent Field, a meteorologist for the local air district. “But if we have the weather like we have had so far, there will be no problems.”

Southern California has benefited from two big weather systems battling for supremacy over the West this year. A low-pressure system off the coast of the Pacific Northwest is responsible for the intermittent morning clouds and fog along the coast, while a high-pressure system over New Mexico and Texas is heating up inland valleys.

“Ventura County benefits from the sloshing effect of these two systems bumping up against each other and trying to muscle each other out of the way,” Field said. The air “is not as stable and stagnant as a more typical summer pattern. It makes a nice summer and ozone is down because of this.”

That weather pattern should persist for at least the next 10 days, but after that, it is difficult to predict which way the weather will turn, Field said.

Weather plays a key role in smog formation. When fumes from tailpipes and smokestacks mix with sunlight, ozone--a toxic, invisible gas--is formed. Gasses, as well as soot and dust, also mix in the air to form microscopic particles, which make the signature gauzy brown sky over Southern California. Warm, stagnant air acts to contain the pollutant soup, and keep it pressed low over cities.

But smog has been declining in recent years because of regulation, industry cleanup efforts and new technologies, according to environmentalists, business officials and government regulators. Indeed, last year Houston overtook Los Angeles as the nation’s ozone capital.

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Cleaner Air

The number of days Ventura County’s air exceeded federal air pollution standards has gradually diminished during the past decade. Numbers are based on the federal one-hour ozone standard:

1990: 18

1991: 33

1992: 10

1993: 13

1994: 17

1995: 23

1996: 17

1997: 2

1998: 5

1999: 2

2000: 0*

* To date. The smog season concludes at the end of October.

Source: Ventura County Air Pollution Control District.