Date: November 15, 2001	Contact: Darren Pudgil
	tel: (619) 531-5894

AFTER 30 YEARS, SAN DIEGO MEETS FEDERAL AIR STANDARD
Roberts Calls it “One of San Diego’s Greatest Environmental Victories”

SAN DIEGO – Heralding it as a monumental civic achievement for our region, Supervisors Ron Roberts and Bill Horn today announced that the County of San Diego has, for the first time, met the federal ozone standard for clean air as set in the landmark Clean Air Act of 1970.

“This is, without question, one of San Diego’s greatest environmental victories of the past 25 years,” said Roberts, who also serves as the County’s representative on the California Air Resources Board, which has led the nation in setting strict air pollution control measures. “This certainly didn’t happen by accident. It happened because the people of San Diego
County made a commitment a long time ago and stuck to it.”

“We have come a long way in our efforts to clear up our skies and clean up the air we breathe,” said Horn.

Ozone is a gas that forms as a result of a chemical process when emissions, mostly those produced by cars and trucks, combine with bright, strong sunshine.

To reach ozone attainment status, a region must go three consecutive years without any more than a total of three unhealthy air days. With this accomplishment, San Diego County now becomes the only large metropolitan area in California to comply with this standard.

Roberts and Horn attribute the County’s success to several factors, including stricter emission standards for cars and trucks, tighter controls on industrial sources of pollution and the conversion of nearly half of all transit buses to natural gas.

In San Diego County, more than half of all air pollution is caused by vehicle emissions and nearly 75 percent of local air pollution is produced by vehicle emissions, as well as pollutants created by other mobile sources such as planes and trains.

Over the last 20 years in San Diego County, smog-forming emissions have been cut by a third, even as our region’s population and vehicle fleet have increased by 50 percent during this same period. Smokestack emissions also have decreased by 90 percent over the last 20 years.