BR meets new ozone standards

• By JEREMY HARPER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jan 14, 2009 - Page: 8A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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The five-parish Baton Rouge area met the toughest federal ozone standards for the first time in 2008, a major step forward for the area’s economy and quality of life, government officials and business leaders said Tuesday.

The five-parish area of East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Livingston, Iberville and Ascension has struggled for years to meet federal standards for ozone. It was the last area in the state to meet the standards.

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality had said late last year it expected the Baton Rouge area, as well as the entire state, to meet the federal eight-hour air pollution standard for all of 2008.

The DEQ has since verified its data, and officials celebrated the achievement Tuesday at the DEQ’s headquarters.

“The work that has been accomplished means that children will breathe cleaner air, the citizens will breathe cleaner air, and that helps economic development and that helps quality of life,” said Larry Starfield, deputy regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The state plans to ask the EPA to formally approve the designation in March. Starfield said the EPA would make it official as “quickly as we can.”

Local and state officials who work to recruit businesses to the area said the extra costs associated with ozone problems discouraged new businesses from building in Baton Rouge and often kept existing businesses from expanding.

“Making this progress toward attainment serves to remove some of those uncertainties and remove some of those costs,” said Steven Grissom, deputy secretary of the state Department of Economic Development.

Ozone pollution forms during hot, sunny days when volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides — from industry, vehicles and other sources — combine and go through a chemical reaction. Ozone can cause health problems, especially for sensitive populations, such as children or the elderly.

The contamination is measured in parts per billion. One part per billion is one drop of contaminant in an Olympic-sized swimming pool, or the equivalent of one second in 32 years.

The five-parish Baton Rouge area has taken several steps to reduce the pollution, including “ozone action days” called by DEQ when weather conditions are forecast to be good for ozone formation.

Part of the action is to ask industry and individuals to limit activities such as lawn mowing, refueling or certain industrial activities during the hottest part of the day.

Harold Leggett, who heads the DEQ, praised government officials, industry representatives and community members whom he said worked together to meet the ozone standards.