RALEIGH, N.C.--For John Bibb, filling up on gas is not an errand; it's a philosophy. He takes his black 2001 Volkswagen Beetle TDI to the Han-Dee Hugo's BP station in Garner, just south of here, to use the state's first public biodiesel pump. The fuel, a mix of diesel and soybean oil, burns cleaner than regular diesel and helps reduce ozone pollution. "This is one way of making an impact," says the 34-year-old engineer, whose asthma is exacerbated by air pollution. But Bibb's efforts can only go so far. On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency will deem the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area--along with hundreds of metropolitan regions nationwide--in violation of new federal ozone standards. And getting out of that jam will require more than a guy with a Bug.
The so-called nonattainment designation triggers various actions, including immediate constraints on expansion of polluting industries. The designation also requires that states deliver clean air plans to the EPA by 2007. The deadline for actually meeting the clean air standard is 2009 or 2010 for most areas. Regions that fail risk losing federal transportation funding. "It's a big strike," says Pam Wall, executive director of the Greater Triangle Regional Council. Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker claims "there is every reason to think we will come back into compliance," but politicians, business groups, environmentalists, and just plain folks have their work cut out for them.
The EPA has long sanctioned--or threatened to sanction--polluted areas under the Clean Air Act. But it was the creation of tighter rules for ozone, the main element in smog, that have landed traffic-challenged areas like Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill in hot water. The ingredients in ozone are organic compounds, like vapors from gas pumps, and nitrogen oxides, which are released when fossil fuels are burned, mostly by cars and trucks. The molecules react with sunlight to form ozone. Reports on the health dangers of long-term exposure to ozone prompted the EPA in 1997 to create tighter standards for ozone pollution--standards that are just now being applied after years of litigation. The list of 110 to 120 metropolitan areas that have failed to meet the new requirements will be announced this week, says Jeff Clark of the EPA's Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards.
The nonattainment label is a bitter pill for this fast-growing region. In 2000, the affected eight-county zone was home to nearly 1.3 million people, an estimated 25 percent jump over 1990; the metropolitan area's unemployment rate of 4 percent is well below the national rate of 5.7 percent. At the heart of the area's prosperity is the high-tech Research Triangle Park, which houses more than 100 companies and 38,500 employees. But the ozone problem has everyone concerned. Companies looking to locate in nonattainment areas must pay to offset pollution they cause, while existing facilities that emit pollution and want to expand face stringent permitting requirements. "These standards are going to cast a wet blanket over some parts of our nation," warns Sen. George Voinovich, chairman of a congressional clean air subcommittee.
Choked up.
But something must be done. On bad ozone days, the Raleigh skyline just about disappears in a murky haze. And ozone exposure worsens respiratory problems. Indeed, over the past 20 years, North Carolina has seen a 55 percent jump in asthma death rates, says Deborah Bryan, president of the state's chapter of the American Lung Association. For doctors like Marilyn Hicks, director of pediatric emergency medicine at Raleigh's WakeMed hospital, the trend is frightening. When she started at the hospital 18 years ago, she'd see one or two kids per week with bad wheezing. Now, she sees one every couple of hours. "It's a huge public-health issue," she says, looking at a boy in the hospital's "puffing parlor," a comfy treatment room just for asthmatic kids.
But the region has not been sitting on its hands. Indeed, the Triangle area (so named for the shape formed by drawing lines connecting its three cities--Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill) has been progressive on air quality issues. "We are not starting from square one," says Jane Preyer, director of the North Carolina chapter of Environmental Defense, a national green group. Government workers ride free on Raleigh's many biodiesel transit buses. Traffic lights in Garner are being synchronized to reduce idling time. In 2002, the North Carolina legislature passed tough new rules reducing emissions from coal-burning power plants, and last month, the state petitioned the EPA to force neighboring states to reduce air pollution wafting into Tar Heel skies. Meanwhile, folks like Bibb continue helping and hoping for the best. "We need to do all we can," he says, shifting his ever present asthma inhaler inside a pocket of his black jeans.
source: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040419/usnews/19raleigh.htm 11apr04
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