LUNG GROUP SAYS SKIES TOO SMOGGY CITY, STATE IN BAD SHAPE.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

With auto emissions continuing to foul the region's air, Los Angeles received an ``F'' for smog for the fourth consecutive year, according to an American Lung Association report released today.

And California cities held six of the top seven spots in the association's annual ``State of the Air'' report, although the state has reduced its ozone pollution by 24 percent over the last two decades - twice the national rate.

``We have to keep working to improve air quality if we want to impact the health of our loved ones. And what that really means is, we've got to figure out a way to reduce motor vehicle emissions,'' said Dr. John Balmes, who serves on the Lung Association's Clean Air Technical Advisory Group in California.

In placing metropolitan Los Angeles at the top of its list for polluting cities, the association cited the 106 days of ``unhealthful'' air between 1999 and 2001, when children, the elderly and asthmatics were warned to curtail outdoor activity because of high pollution levels.

Other top polluters were Fresno, Bakersfield, the Visalia-Tulare-Porterville area, and Houston, Texas.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District, which includes Orange County and parts of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, has a plan to meet the current ozone health standard, but it deals primarily with industrial - not vehicle - emissions.

But officials with other agencies say vehicle emissions present the greatest opportunity for improving air quality.

``Could you go one day a week without driving? That's a 15 percent reduction right there,'' said Tim Carmichael, executive director of the Coalition for Clean Air. ``Many middle- and upper-class Angelenos have never been on the bus - period. The system is much better than people give it credit for.''

Other experts said regional leaders would be wise to continue expanding the mass-transit system, like the new light-rail Gold Line from Pasadena to downtown.

``In Los Angeles, there is a whole number of communities that could be served by mass transit in an efficient and enjoyable way,'' said the Sierra Club's regional director, Carl Zichella.

Air pollution experts also want to retire aging, exhaust-spewing cars - known as gross polluters.

New cars are 95 percent cleaner than those manufactured in the 1970s. And the new hybrid cars - which run on gasoline and electric power - are better yet, burning 90 percent cleaner than a 2003 internal combusion engine.

``There's a massive fleet in Southern California and turning over that fleet would definitely help,'' said Richard Varenchik, spokesman for the California Air Resources Board.

The state has no money to offer motorists cash incentives to retire their old cars, and the agency is reluctant to force motorists to dump their gross polluters because the poor would be bear the brunt of the burden, Varenchik said.

But Carmichael said the Coalition for Clean Air has proposed a system in which car dealers would pay a couple hundred dollars for each new car sold to create an incentive fund for motorists to replace their gross polluters.

Other experts see potential for reducing the smelly black diesel exhaust from heavy-duty trucks, which generate 240 tons per day of smog-forming emissions.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is looking at possibly offering financial incentives to trucking companies that upgrade their equipment, said Jack Broadbent, regional air division director.

In the long term, Carmichael wants Southern California utilities to decrease their dependence on polluting power plants and develop more renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and hydropower.

He and other experts also want California to begin changing from petroleum to clean-burning hydrogen.

Air quality regulators also see the potential for reducing pollution by more tightly regulating common consumer products such as aerosol hair spray and paints, which are the region's second-largest source of smog-forming pollutants.

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L.A. AIR QUALITY GETS AN F

Jon Gerung/Staff Artist