SAN FRANCISCO
– The Bay Area is concluding its 2003 summertime smog season
with only a single excess of the federal one-hour ozone
standard.
SAN FRANCISCO – The Bay Area is concluding its 2003 summertime smog season with only a single excess of the federal one-hour ozone standard.
The excess occurred in Livermore, at one of 22 air-monitoring stations maintained by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (Air District). The one-hour standard for low-level ozone is 12 parts per 100 million.
The Bay Area also had seven excesses of the new federal eight-hour ozone standard. These readings are averaged over three years to gauge attainment of the federal eight-hour standard. One air monitoring station, located in San Martin, presently violates the eight-hour standard by a small margin.
The eight-hour standard is 8 parts per 100 million. Levels below 8.4 parts can be rounded down, but the San Martin station’s three-year reading is 8.6 parts per 100 million.
“San Martin’s pollution is largely getting blown down from the (Silicon) Valley or up from Monterey,” said Terry Lee, spokeswoman for the air district.
Awareness is the key to reducing levels of harmful ozone, which can cause lung irritation, aggravation of asthma or emphysema and watery eyes, Lee said.
“As a society, we need to drive less, get out of our cars as much as we can, drive fuel-efficient cars, pay attention to environmental issues, the whole bag of things that people need to do to decrease air pollution,” Lee said.
