Groups suing EPA

Groups suing EPA

The agency failed to enforce pollution standards, they say.

By COLIN FLY
The Associated Press

Health and environmental groups from eight Southeastern states announced Thursday they intend to take the Environmental Protection Agency to court for failing to enforce air pollution health standards set five years ago.

The groups, including the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, the American Lung Association and the Sierra Club, plan to sue the EPA in federal court within 60 days to force the agency to begin implementing stricter standards for ozone pollution, the main component of smog.

Metropolitan Chattanooga is among 59 communities that have failed to meet federal air quality standards for ozone, a gas that can cause respiratory problems.

The groups say the EPA has failed to enforce the Clean Air Act, which requires the agency to ensure that states meet air quality standards.

"The EPA has been asleep at the wheel," said David Bailey, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "They have ignored the law and they have ignored the health of our citizens."

The groups say the EPA has failed to require states to submit plans to reduce ozone pollution in areas that do not meet federal standards.

The EPA has 60 days to respond to the notice of intent to sue before the groups can file a lawsuit.

"We are reviewing the notice and will respond in due course," said EPA spokeswoman Dawn Harris-Young.

EPA: Environment, health groups sue

munities in the Southeast with air emission monitors that are violating the allowable eight-hour emissions levels for ozone.

Last year, Chattanooga exceeded the allowable level during an 8-hour period on four days. That was the lowest exceedance since 1992. In 1998, Chattanooga exceeded the eight-hour level 24 days, and in 1988 Chattanooga was above the eight-hour standard on 25 days, according to Bob Colby of the Chattanooga/Hamilton County Air Pollution Bureau.. "We've got an excessive amount of cities and counties violating the eight-hour ozone standards," said alliance spokeswoman Ulla Reeves. "We very clearly have a problem in the Southeast."

Steve Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said EPA "is dragging its feet" in failing to implement the standards it first adopted in 1997.

"The current EPA is in no hurry to institute these standards, and yet the health implications from not enforcing these rules is something that can't any longer be ignored," Dr. Smith said.

Dr. Smith said 10 counties in Tennessee. exceeded the eight-hour standards last year, "and those were all the areas with monitors in the state."

More than 23 million people in an eight-state region from North Carolina to Mississippi are exposed to unhealthy levels of ozone pollution, a component of smog, according to the American Lung Association.

Pam Lewis, executive director of the Alabama chapter, said Thursday's action is the first step in cleaning up the region's air quality by forcing the EPA to designate which areas fail to comply so the states "can start making plans to get the air clean."

The EPA had delayed designating the areas that aren't in compliance-because of industry lawsuits challenging the tougher standards. But the last legal challenge was struck down in March.

Kay Prince, chief of air planning at the EPA regional office in Atlanta, couldn't comment on the group's intent to sue, but she said her agency has already started the process of implementing the standards and will begin to formulate ways to help states improve regions of poor air quality.

"We expect to publish a final notice in 2003. Once that notice is published, we'll give states the opportunity to comment," said Prince.

States would then have three years to comply.

The new regulations limit ozone to 0.08 parts per million instead of 0.12 parts per million and require ozone levels to be averaged over an eight-hour period instead of the current one-hour period.