What will New Hampshire and Maine have to do to comply with the new federal air quality standards? Apparently, not much.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency released a list of hundreds of counties across the country that are not in compliance or "attainment" with the new stringent standards for ground-level ozone, which becomes smog. States will have to develop plans which will likely include putting new restrictions on cars, reducing industrial emissions, as well as other measures.
In New Hampshire, four counties including Rockingham and Strafford counties, were found not be in attainment and were identified as "moderate." All of this means the state will have three years to develop a plan to be approved by federal regulators, and three more years to clean up the air. All areas of the state will have to be in compliance by 2010.
Several counties in Maine were also identified as needing cleaner air, including York County, which was classified as "marginal," according to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
The good news is both states are in relatively good shape as they head towards taking steps to reach attainment. If attainment is not reached, the federal government could impose penalties, such as withholding federal highway improvement funds.
"In terms of some of the historical information, New Hampshire and Maine were already taking steps to reduce the ground-level ozone. Certainly, tomorrow morning people will not have a drastic change in their lives, but over time we're looking to make the air cleaner" said David Deegan, of the EPA's regional office in Boston. "Our air today is cleaner than 10 or 15 years ago. The way we're moving, in 10 or 15 years it will be even cleaner."
Officials in both New Hampshire and Maine say the new regulations will mean very little to the average person in terms of affecting their daily lives, and the cleaner air will lead to a healthier population. Many other states are reviewing strategies that would intimately affect how people live - from cutting speed limits by 5 mph, to discouraging house painting in summer, to giving tax breaks to businesses that encourage telecommuting.
Gov. Craig Benson's office said the state has already been taking steps to improve air quality, and should be able to meet the new requirements without inconvenience to residents of the state.
"The state of New Hampshire has already taken steps to reduce pollution levels from the Midwestern states and improve MtBE levels. We have also taken internal steps to reduce power plant emissions into the environment," said Benson's press secretary Wendell Packard. "So we are in good position to meet these new standards. We're reviewing all of our options."
The state has already sued big oil companies over MtBE contamination. MtBE is an additive which allows car engines to burn more efficiently and cleanly.
New Hampshire entered into the reformulated gasoline program which puts MtBE into the gas in four counties - Strafford, Rockingham, Merrimack and Hillsborough - in an effort to meet old standards and avoid automobile emissions testing. Lawmakers are looking to opt out of that program and develop standards to reduce smokestack fumes. The new, tougher regulations shouldn't affect those plans, or force the state to start "tailpipe" testing on cars and trucks.
"Going back to looking at tailpipe testing is not something we're planning on doing," said Jeff Underhill, chief scientist at the Air Resources Division for the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. "The new standards shouldn't affect the plan to opt out of MtBE and our ability to attain or not attain the new standards. We can use some other technology to reach attainment."
The old rules measured peak ozone exposure for one hour. Under the new rules, there will be eight-hour measurements and lower acceptable levels of ozone in the air, from 120 parts per billion down to 85.
"What we're going to propose are little things like routine checks of pollution controls during car inspections, further limiting fumes from gas pumps," Underhill said. "Little things that can add up to make a difference. They will be invisible to most people."
Underhill said the biggest cause of pollution in the state, other than dirty air that blows in from other parts of the country, is caused by cars and large trucks.
"One thing we always have to keep on top of are cars and trucks. There are more cars and trucks than ever before being driven more than ever before," he said. "Even though cars are getting cleaner, we have to make sure they are getting cleaner as fast as the amount of travel is going up. Trucks are a big problem. We may be looking for cleaner fuel and capacity requirements for trucks, but that's true on a national level."
If cleaner fuel is an avenue that's pursued, higher costs at the pumps for cleaner gas may anger some motorists, Underhill said, but it will save the public in the long run.
"No one wants to pay extra money for it, but by paying 50 cents more in gas, it may save a person $100 in health insurance premiums. We're striving for a healthier population because ozone can lead to problems," he said.
Jim Brooks, director of the Air Quality Bureau of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, echoed Underhill's comments.
"There are no prescriptive measures that were applied for Maine. It will be a lot of little things that we'll be doing," Brooks said. "In York County, we had asked to be moderate instead of marginal. We felt this would coincide with surrounding areas and would allow us to all come into attainment at the same time."
Because York County was tagged as marginal, officials must clean the air there in three years.
In the mid-1990s, Maine had implemented tailpipe testing, but the program was scrapped.
"Sorry about the pun, but that went up in smoke," Brook said. "That's not something we will need to revisit to reach attainment."
The new regulations came as no surprise to the two states.
In letters sent to Benson and Maine Gov. John Baldacci in December, EPA Regional Administrator Robert Varney stated the counties the EPA intends to designate as "nonattaining" the new standards are consistent with each state's July 2003 recommendations.
Some 470 counties in 31 states were targeted by the regulations, mostly in California and the Northeast part of the county, which is known as "America's Tailpipe." This dubious moniker came from the fact that much of the air pollution in the region blows in from the Midwest.
"A lot of the biggest steps we're going to see taking place are steps that won't take place in our state at all. That alone may make the difference for us," said Underhill. "I think we're definitely heading in the right direction as a region in the Northeast, but of more concern is we want to make sure steps are taken on a national level to take care of pollution blowing into the state from the Midwest."
The new ozone standards were crafted by the Bush EPA after being initiated under the Clinton administration. They were delayed from taking affect for four years because of failed court challenges by the trucking, manufacturing and business groups as well as by the states of Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia. The Supreme Court upheld the standards in February 2001. Environmental and public health groups such as the American Lung Association and Environmental Defense sued to force government into action.
The more stringent regulations are intended to reduce smog from ozone produced by paint and gasoline vapors combining at ground levels with nitrogen oxides from fossil fuel burning. Heat and sunlight turn it into smog.
The EPA Web site states the ground-level ozone "can irritate a person's airways, reduce lung function, aggravate asthma, and inflame and damage the cells lining the lungs. It also may aggravate chronic lung diseases like emphysema and bronchitis, may reduce the immune system's ability to fight off bacterial infections in the respiratory system, and long-term, repeated exposure may cause permanent lung damage."
Other counties in Maine identified in the preliminary documentation as areas of "nonattainment" include Androscoggin, Cumberland, Hancock, Knox, Lincoln, Sagadahoc and Waldo, in addition to York.
One of the sites for ozone monitoring is right in the town of York, high atop Mount Agamenticus. In a report issued to the Board of Selectmen this spring, Parks and Recreation Director Mike Sullivan noted the town is working with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to install ozone-monitoring equipment in the Mount Agamenticus lodge. The revised federal standards have wide economic and environmental implications and the makeup of the list has been the subject of lobbying in Washington. Areas in violation face the loss of federal money for roads. Industrial development can be barred in those areas unless companies prove they would not make pollution worse.
The revised designations are a result of a process that started in 1997 when the Clinton administration tightened standards for ozone and soot.
The old ozone rules measured peak exposures over one-hour periods. But dozens of studies showed persistent exposure to low levels of ozone damages the respiratory and immune systems. The tighter standards measure ozone over eight hours.
States will have three years to come up with detailed plans on how they would reduce the two main ingredients of ground-level ozone: nitrogen oxides, which are emitted through combustion, and volatile organic compounds, gases that evaporate from gasoline and paints.
Wire service reports contributed to this article.