California Air Resources Board

SACRAMENTO – The California Air Resources Board today approved measures designed to bring the San Francisco Bay Area back into compliance with federal air quality standards for ozone, a major component of urban smog.

        The ARB Board approved the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's plan for reducing ozone enough to meet federal 1-hour ozone standards in the Bay Area by Nov. 15, 2000.  The federal 1-hour standard is violated if an air district exceeds 12 parts of ozone per one hundred million parts of air more than three times in three years.

        "The measures to be instituted by the Bay Area District, together with measures already implemented by the ARB, should bring the Bay Area back into compliance with federal standards," said ARB Chairman Dr. Alan Lloyd.

        Approximately 90 percent of the emission reductions needed to meet the federal ozone standard have already been put in place by the ARB.  These include ARB emission controls on automobiles and emission-reducing standards for fuels and consumer products.

        The Bay Area Air Quality Management District's plan proposes to gain the rest of the needed reductions through new control measures on emissions from polystyrene manufacturing, organic liquid storage, and on the processes used for aeration of contaminated soils.  The District also committed to sharply increase its oversight of gasoline service stations.  That effort alone is expected to cut ozone-forming pollution by about 13 tons per day.

        "These measures will put the Bay Area back on the path to meet federal air quality standards and will move us closer to meeting the more health-protective state standards," said Ellen Garvey, the District's Executive Officer.

        The Bay Area plan will become a revision to the California State Implementation Plan (SIP), the state's "roadmap" for meeting federal clean-air mandates.