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Charlotte area unlikely to meet 2010 deadline on ozone standard
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Published: January 12, 2009
Charlotte's air quality took a turn for the better in 2008 - just as a new ozone standard took effect that will make it harder to reach a federal standard.
Last year illustrated the paradox that bedevils Charlotte: cleaner air that can't quite clear a rising regulatory bar.
It's not likely that Mecklenburg County will meet a 2010 deadline, still in effect, to meet the federal ozone standard set in 1997. A new standard enacted last March sets a later deadline but might be even harder to meet.
Failure under either moves the Charlotte region closer toward federal sanctions, which could include a freeze of federal transportation money.
Lungs would also suffer. The new standard is based on studies showing that air pollution, even at low levels, hurts human health. The Environmental Protection Agency, in revising the standard last year, said the move would save up to $17 billion a year in hospital visits and other health costs.
Under the old standard, Mecklenburg had five days last year in which ozone was thick enough to potentially cause health problems. Measured by the new standard, there were 17 such days.
Either way, the data shows a generally positive trend in the region's air quality over the past decade.
Air officials say 2002 state legislation to clean up coal-fired power plants, along with federal vehicle and fuel standards, are showing results. Ozone peaks don't rise as high or spread as wide as they did a few years ago, said George Bridgers, a state meteorologist.
But Charlotte's traffic, a major source of ozone, keeps growing.
Mecklenburg and neighboring Rowan, downwind of Charlotte, are the only two N.C. counties that still don't meet the 1997 standard. Because many commuters drive into Mecklenburg, the EPA classifies an eight-county area as breaking the standard.
EPA says conditions won't improve enough to meet the standard by 2010. Facing rejection by EPA, state officials last month withdrew a mandated cleanup plan. They hope a low-smog 2009 will improve the region's chances of compliance.
Then comes the more stringent new standard, which overlaps the old one. Mecklenburg and 47 other N.C. counties, or parts of counties, are expected to fail it.
N.C. officials are expected to ask EPA to name smaller "non-attainment" areas, including Mecklenburg, Lincoln, Gaston, Rowan, Cabarrus, Union and southern Iredell counties in the Charlotte region. EPA will make its designations in 2010.
"I think it's going to be very to extremely difficult" to meet the new standard, said Mecklenburg air-quality director Don Willard.
State planners believe that cleaner power plants and vehicles will push the Charlotte region into compliance, Willard said, but earlier projections "haven't panned out, so I'm kind of dubious."
Cleaning up power plants and cars is simple compared to the larger hurdle of persuading hundreds of thousands of Charlotte commuters to share rides, take transit or otherwise stay off the freeways at rush hour, Willard said.
A privately funded program aims to do just that.
Clean Air Works, which encourages commuting alternatives and less-polluting business practices, now includes 110 companies. The program says carpooling and other efforts have saved 3.5 million commuter miles, keeping 185,000 pounds of pollutants out of the air.
"We are not at the point where we're moving the needle that much, but we are making a difference," said David Franchina, a K&L Gates attorney and chairman of the Regional Air Quality Board, which sponsors the program.
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