CLEAN AIR NEWSLINE

May 2007 Edition

In this issue:

Clean Air Agency celebrates 40 years
Northwest ports join forces to reduce maritime air emissions
Be ozone smart and do your part for cleaner summer air
Know the facts about recreational fires
How was March's air?
Announcements

Happy Anniversary to us!
Puget Sound Clean Air Agency celebrates 40 years

June 17th is the 40th anniversary of the Washington Clean Air Act and also marks the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency’s 40th year of ensuring that residents of the Puget Sound area have clean, healthy air to breathe.

We are a special-purpose, regional agency chartered by that 1967 state law adopting the Washington Clean Air Act (http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=70.94) . Originally founded as the Puget Sound Air Pollution Control Agency to serve King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, the agency’s authority was extended to Kitsap County in 1970. Today, our four-county jurisdiction spans 6,300 square miles and is home to more than 3.5 million people – almost half the state’s population. Following mandates of both the federal and Washington Clean Air Acts, our activities include air quality monitoring and regulating businesses that have the potential to cause air pollution.

In 1999 we changed our name to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, a change symbolic of the progress we’ve made over the past 40 years to clean the air. While we used to devote most of our resources to controlling pollution sources (primarily from business and industry) through regulation, we now focus increasingly on promoting cleaner air and protecting our climate through technology innovations. These include cleaner vehicles, cleaner fuels such as biofuels, changing out uncertified wood stoves for cleaner heating devices, and voluntary partnerships and incentives, like our award-winning Diesel Solutions program (www.dieselsolutions.org) .

As we enter our next decade serving the people of the Puget Sound region, there is plenty of work yet to do. Growth is one of the biggest issues facing our region, affecting mobility (of people and consumer goods), the price of housing and air quality. Even though technology has led to cleaner cars, there are more of us driving more miles – about 80 million miles per day in our four-county region alone. And each day we understand more and more how global climate change is already impacting our region.

While the Clean Air Agency continues to have a regulatory role to ensure compliance by business and industry, each and every one of us has a role to play as we face the air-quality and climate-protection challenges of the next 10 years and beyond. Everyday choices we make – about how we get to work, how we heat our home, and how we maintain our yards, for example – all influence air quality in our region. To help you determine what YOU can do to help clean the air, visit www.pscleanair.org/actions/default.aspx .

Northwest ports join forces to reduce maritime air emissions

Ports play a critical role in our Pacific Northwest economy, bringing commerce, jobs and business opportunities. Many port-related activities, however, generate diesel exhaust and greenhouse gases, which impact our health and environment. With port activity in the Northwest expected to increase significantly over the next few years, it's important to pair this growth with steps to reduce emissions, ensuring the growth is sustainable and protective of human health.

This month the ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Vancouver, Canada announced they plan to do just that. The three ports are joining forces to reduce maritime air emissions, as outlined in a draft Northwest Ports Clean Air Strategy unveiled at the “Faster Freight - Cleaner Air Puget Sound” conference held May 16 in Seattle. Working together and across international borders, the ports aim to substantially reduce diesel emissions and greenhouse gases from port-related activities. The draft strategy sets short-term (by 2010) and long-term (by 2015) emission reduction goals for five sources of maritime pollution: ocean-going vessels, cargo-handling equipment, rail, trucks and vehicles, and harbor vessels. Ways the ports can meet these goals include switching to cleaner fuels, replacing older engines with cleaner engines, and expanding shore-power infrastructure so more ships can plug in, rather than run their engines, while at dock.

What's especially remarkable about this initiative is that the ports are undertaking this voluntarily -- and in the spirit of cooperation rather than competition. The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency is proud to be a partner in this effort.

The draft Northwest Ports Clean Air Strategy can be downloaded at www.maritimeairforum.org .

Enjoy your backyard, but don’t smoke out your neighbors
Know the facts about recreational fires

Looking for a healthier, cleaner alternative to that smoky chiminea or fire bowl in your backyard?

Check out the variety of patio heaters and fire pits that burn natural gas or propane, available from home-improvement stores, mass retailers and many online marketplaces. With one of these clean, efficient units warming your summer evening, there’ll be no complaints from neighbors and no smoke to taint your own star-gazing. And when it’s time to turn in, just turn it off!

To give you a bit of background, recreational fires are defined in state law as cooking fires and charcoal barbecues, campfires and bonfires that occur in designated areas or on private property for cooking, pleasure or ceremonial purposes. Wood-fueled fires lit in chimineas, fire pits, fire bowls and similar free-standing devices, fall under this definition. For these solid-fuel devices, only charcoal, dried firewood or manufactured firelogs may be used. It is illegal to burn anything else -- that includes yard debris or trash. Fires must not exceed three feet in diameter or two feet in height. These types of recreational fires are always prohibited during air-quality burn bans. They may also be prohibited during a fire-safety burn ban (check with your local fire district). But you can use a natural gas or propane unit.

And remember: be a good neighbor. It is always illegal to smoke out your neighbor. If smoke from your fire bothers your neighbors, damages their property or otherwise causes a nuisance, you must immediately put it out.

For more tips about recreational fires, and to view the law, visit www.pscleanair.org/actions/outdoorfires/recreational.aspx .

Be ozone smart – do your part for cleaner summer air

While technically it's still spring, with temperatures soaring into the high 80s, it sure feels like summer. And warmer summer months are when we start worrying about ground-level ozone, commonly known as smog.

Smog builds when summertime sunlight "cooks" everyday emissions from motor vehicles, industry, paints, solvents and gasoline fumes. When the pollutants react with the summertime sunlight, they form ground-level ozone. Exposure to ground-level ozone can harm our health, and can trigger asthma attacks, lung inflammation and other respiratory illnesses. Ozone may damage lung tissue even in healthy people. It makes our eyes itch, burn and water.

The Puget Sound area typically experiences smog problems when temperatures reach 85 degrees or higher, and especially when winds are stagnant or light. Last summer was our worst ozone season since 1998 -- and though we cannot predict what kind of summer is in store for us this year, adopting a few clean-air behaviors now can help reduce pollution and help ensure our ozone levels stay within healthy limits:

Reduce your commute. When you commute less, you pollute less. Bus, bike, carpool, or telework instead.
Quit idling around. Idling for longer than 30 seconds actually burns more fuel than turning off and restarting your engine. Turn off your engine instead. You’ll save money too!
Stash the gas mower. Reducing use of gasoline powered yard equipment, or opting for electric or manually powered devices instead, helps keep smog levels down.
Try pollution-free water recreation. Motor boats produce about 85,000 pounds of smog-forming pollutants each summer day in the Puget Sound region – try sailing, canoeing or kayaking instead.
Refuel when it’s cool. Refueling your vehicles in cooler evening hours reduces the opportunity for volatile organic compounds released by gasoline to turn into ozone.
Be air aware. Join our Clean Air Action Network, and be among the first to know when we call a Smog Watch or when air-quality conditions indicate the need for early action. Sign up at www.pscleanair.org/news/agencynews.aspx . (Note: if you receive this newsletter directly, you are already signed up to get these alerts.)

To learn more about ozone, click to www.pscleanair.org/airq/basics/criteria/ozone.aspx .

Monthly air quality data summary: March*

March had the best air quality compared with the previous four months with 21 days in the “Good” category, 10 days in the “Moderate” category, and no days in either “Unhealthy” or “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups.”

With the arrival of March, we also saw the end of a winter that we’ll remember for its heavy rains and flooding, damaging wind storms, cold and snow. Both rainfall and temperatures were a little above normal for March with SeaTac airport receiving 4.42 inches of rain for the month (0.67 inches above normal) and temperatures averaging 47.1 degrees ( 0.9 degrees above normal).

For data summaries of air quality monitored throughout our four-county region, click to www.pscleanair.org/airq/aqsumm/07-03.aspx .

*Because of the time it takes to review data for quality assurance and process data for reports, our air quality discussions in each “Newsline” edition will be two months previous. Thus our report for this edition is for March 2007.

Announcements

Request for Proposal (RFP) for Washington State Ferry Biodiesel Project
Closes: 6/5/07

As a public agency, the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency issues formal requests for proposals and qualifications for the purchase of certain equipment or supplies, or to enlist professional services to supplement our work. The Clean Air Agency is now accepting proposals electronically. See the RFP document for details on the requirements to submit proposals by hard copy or electronically. www.pscleanair.org/announce/notices/rfprfq.aspx .

About the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency

The mission of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency is to ensure that people in King, Kitsap, Pierce and Snohomish counties have clean, healthy air to breathe. Our job is to provide air quality management services on behalf of cities and counties for their citizens. We do this by adopting and enforcing air quality regulations, sponsoring voluntary initiatives to improve air quality, and educating people and businesses about clean-air choices. To learn more about our work, visit us at www.pscleanair.org .

About the Clean Air Newsline

Clean Air Newsline is a monthly electronic newsletter to provide air quality information to the residents of King, Kitsap, Pierce and Snohomish counties. Subscribers receive the latest on air quality news, trends and projects that affect our local communities and the air we breathe. Feel free to pass the information along to others.

We also use the Newsline as needed to send timely and important messages about burn bans, Smog Watches and early calls to action when air quality deteriorates.

If you would like to subscribe, you can do so at http://www.pscleanair.org/news/agencynews.aspx . Be sure to select Clean Air Newsline to be added to the e-mailing list.