A.V. SMOG WORST IN 3 YEARS; FEDERAL OZONE RULE EXCEEDED 8 TIMES.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

El Nino's departure gave the Antelope Valley its smoggiest summer in three years, but air quality remains far better than it was as recently as 10 years ago, statistics released Monday show.

As Southern California's annual smog season enters its last days, ozone levels have exceeded federal health standards this year eight times - up from zero in 1997 and one in 1996, but far less than the 44 counted in 1988 and 1989.

``A lot of it is we had good weather, winds that broke (smog) up, last year. This year, the sun basically cooked it up in L.A. and brought it up here,'' said Tony Malone, air quality technician for the Mojave Air Pollution Control District, which monitors smog for the newly formed Antelope Valley Air Pollution Control District.

The departure this summer of El Nino's breezes and cloudy skies has worsened smog throughout Southern California. Southern California as a whole this year had 12 Stage 1 smog alerts - when children, elderly people and people with lung and heart problems are advised to stay indoors - up from one in 1997 and seven in 1996.

But for the ninth year in a row the Antelope Valley had none. The Antelope Valley's last Stage 1 alert was in 1989. That same year the valley's air exceeded federal ozone standards 44 days, for the second year in a row.

The Antelope Valley's record smog year was 1981, when ozone - the smog component that causes eyes to burn and lungs to ache - failed federal standards 82 days, state standards 133 days and set off seven Stage 1 alerts.

From 1977 through 1981, Antelope Valley residents endured annually one or more days of Stage 1 smog alerts - including seven days each in 1980 and 1981.

Besides violating federal ozone standards eight days, the valley this summer exceeded the stricter state standards 24 times - including 11 days in August and nine days in July.

Stage 1 alerts are called when ozone reaches .20 parts per million. The federal clean-air standard is .12 parts per million. The state standard is .10 parts per million.

Across Southern California, air quality improvements were credited to gasoline reformulated to reduce pollution, gasoline pump nozzles that stop fumes before they can escape into the air, and cars with better smog controls.

A 1998 Mustang with a 5.0 liter V-8 engine puts out one-tenth the pollution a 1988 Mustang did, Malone said.

Air pollution officials said most Antelope Valley air pollution blows in from the Los Angeles basin - as is evident to anyone who has noticed the brown murk wafting most late summer afternoons through Soledad Pass.

The Antelope Valley is most likely to get high levels of ozone on days when an inversion layer settles over the Los Angeles Basin, then gives up its pollutants to a breeze that blows them into the desert.

Antelope Valley ozone levels typically peak between 4 and 6 p.m. on summer days, after the inversion layer rises high enough to let the pollutants spill over the San Gabriel Mountains, Malone said.

``We never see anything before about 3 p.m.,'' Malone said.

Air pollutants in the Antelope Valley are monitored in downtown Lancaster, at a monitoring station on Pondera Street inherited from the South Coast Air Quality Management District when the Antelope Valley Air Pollution Control District formed in July 1997.

It monitors carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulates as well as ozone, but only ozone exceeded state or federal standards this year, Malone said.

The smog season traditionally ends in mid-October, when the sun has sunk low enough in the southern sky that it no longer breaks down industrial and automotive pollutants into smog.

Pollution days

Days per year in which the Antelope Valley exceeded the federal air quality standard of .12 parts per million of ozone.

1998 8

1997 0

1996 1

1995 5

1994 10

1993 14

1992 25

1991 8

1990 7

1989 44

1988 44

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BOX: POLLUTION DAYS (See text)