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Making a dent
By Editorial Staff/The Fresno Bee
December 13, 2006
A private effort to get the worst air-quality offenders off the Valley streets and highways is making headway. The group behind the effort has plans to do much more, and deserves public support.
Valley Clean Air Now is addressing the problem of gross polluters, older cars that spew much more than their share of smog-causing gases into the atmosphere. The non-profit organization — under the sobriquet "Tune-in and Tune-up" — is paying people $500 to help make repairs on their vehicles so they can pass the state's mandatory Smog Check exam.
The group is also using a high-tech method for gauging the emissions from the cars — one the state has declined to adopt despite evidence that it is more effective than the technology now in use at smog testing stations.
Though small in number by comparison with the total of cars and light trucks on the road, gross polluters are responsible for as much as 20% of the smog-making emissions that are produced by vehicles in the Valley. And vehicle emissions are the biggest single culprit in our filthy air.
Cleaning them up — or getting them off the road altogether — is a very cost-effective way to make a serious dent in the Valley's air pollution.
Valley Clean Air Now wants to do much more. The group has ambitious plans to raise $3 million to $5 million from private sources to help fix or remove the 10,000 dirtiest-running cars on Valley roads. That could remove as much as 450 tons of smog-making pollution each year from our skies.
It's a promising effort that could pay off big in terms of healthier residents and a healthier Valley economy.
Also promising is the remote sensing technology the group is employing. Experts believe the system is more accurate than the equipment now in use, but the state has been slow to warm to the devices, which use a laser to sense the content of vehicle emissions.
The technology has been around for a couple of decades, but concerns about "Big Brother" invading people's privacy have led, in part, to a reluctance to use it. Valley Clean Air Now hopes to finesse such concerns by making the program voluntary.
More power to them. Cleaning up gross polluters is really getting the biggest bang for the buck when it comes to the fight for better air quality.
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