CAR-POOL INCENTIVES DROPPED FROM PLAN : L.A. BASIN PROPOSAL WOULD FIT STANDARDS.

Byline: Marni McEntee Daily News Staff Writer

Measures encouraging people to car pool to shopping centers and stadiums have been dropped from a draft smog control plan along with other proposals deemed impossible to enforce or technically infeasible, air quality officials said Thursday.

The Draft 1997 Air Quality Management Plan, which will be made public today, is updated every three years and serves as a blueprint for meeting state and federal clean air standards in the Los Angeles Basin.

Tougher smog control measures, including the car-pool incentives, were dropped from the plan after a study found that the AQMD could meet current federal air pollution standards without them, said Bill Kelly, a spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Among the measures dropped were tougher standards for printing operations, rubber products manufacturing and refueling operations for pleasure boats and utility equipment.

Some, like a plan to push car pooling to public events, were eliminated because regulators figured the public simply wouldn't bite.

``It's just not popular in general to make it difficult for people to get to the concert hall or the baseball game,'' Kelly said.

Some critics balk at the idea of scaling back any air pollution control measures in the Los Angeles area, still home to the nation's dirtiest air.

``Any action that puts money over people's health and over people's lives is a concern of ours,'' said Andy Weisser, spokesman for the American Lung Association of Los Angeles County.

The recommendations stem from a two-year, $1.4 million study on particulate pollution, funded by the district, the city and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, along with the Western States Petroleum Association, Southern California Gas Co. and the Southern California Rock Products Association.

That study found that dust emissions, a major source of particulates, are less than half of earlier estimates. It also found that ammonia emissions from dairy farms in the Chino area are about one-fourth as high, and that levels of particulates in the Los Angeles Basin are 20 percent lower than previously estimated, the draft plan states.

The changes come after the district's own warnings that particulate pollution is more unhealthy than ozone pollution. Other independent health studies found that particulates make up the most insidious form of pollution because the microscopic particles of dust and auto exhaust can lodge deep in the lungs.

A study released in May by the Natural Resources Defense Council blamed particulate pollution for the premature deaths of an estimated 5,600 people a year in Los Angeles.

After the draft plan is released today, a public comment period, including public workshops, will remain open until mid-September, Kelly said.

After final revisions, the plan again will undergo public comments before being adopted by the AQMD board. It then will be reviewed by the state Air Resources Board and the EPA.