SMOG ADVISERS QUIT IN PROTEST : AQMD'S RESTRICTIONS WON'T HELP, THEY SAY.

Byline: Marni McEntee Daily News Staff Writer

Ten of 11 members of an advisory council to the Los Angeles region's smog agency have resigned in protest of policies they say will fail to clear the nation's dirtiest air and protect public health.

In a joint letter, eight of the advisers who provide scientific and technical expertise to the South Coast Air Quality Management District governing board outlined problems they felt gave them ``little prospect that working `inside' the agency will be effective.'' Two other council members resigned separately.

``Based on our many collective years of experience in the air pollution field, we do not think the district's posture is consistent with the efforts needed to achieve healthy air quality for the 13 million people in the Los Angeles basin,'' said the letter delivered Thursday to AQMD board chairman Jon Mikels.

At the heart of the issue is concern over the district's Air Quality Management Plan, released Aug. 2, which scales back or removes several dozen previously recommended smog-control measures.

The plan, which is revised every three years, backs away from earlier measures to control particulate pollution, tiny pieces of soot from car exhaust and dust that can lodge deep in the lungs and cause chronic health problems.

The resigning advisers said they were disappointed over the ``unmet promise'' of the district's innovative program to allow businesses to cut smog by trading smog credits. The program hasn't met the emission reduction goals hoped for, and a proposal to enlarge it was scuttled last year.

The advisers also criticized the district's plans to remove 14 of its 35 air-monitoring stations in the region and what they contended was a lack of enforcement of rule violations over the past 18 months.

The advisers said that despite their mandate to advise the AQMD board on health, scientific and technical matters, they had little input in the latest air quality plan.

``It doesn't lay out the kind of program that's going to be needed to keep improving air quality in the future, in my view,'' said Arthur Winer, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California in Los Angeles who served on the council seven years.

The resignations caused a mixed reaction at the AQMD's regular board meeting Friday, where board members voted to invite the advisory council to its next meeting Sept. 13 to discuss the problems that led to their resignations.

``It's an important message that the board is getting here.'' board member and Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude said Friday after the meeting.

``It is, of course, a part of a very much larger scenario, and that is the whole theory of air quality and the basic argument of whether we concentrate on public health or economic consequence,'' Braude said. ``They're raising the issue once again, and we have to be concerned about that.''

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich was among AQMD board members who said they would welcome a change on the makeup of the council, whom he called ``a bunch of environmental wackos'' unfriendly to business interests.

``It was a breath of fresh air. The excessive regulation and red tape created by the AQMD has been an exotic fungus which helps create a loss of jobs and has soured our economy,'' Antonovich said. ``It brings a reality check to our board, which has developed in recent months a new beginning, repealing many of our repressive regulations and being pro-jobs.''

Mikels, the AQMD board chairman, said that the district's air pollution plan was still subject to change after a series of planned hearings but that he supported it.

``It's my belief that the majority of the board is comfortable with the plan given the information that we have now. But it's just the draft,'' Mikels said. The board did not discuss the appointment of new advisory council members, he said.