editorial
Crunch time for air quality Now that a serious effort is being made to clean up air pollution, the public may be in for some rude surprises
1he gap, always wide, between the public’s demands for clean air and the actual quality of the air, appears to be widening still further. The newly announced federal ambient air quality stanldards (see this issue, page 503) set targets for air quality that are not far removed from levels corresponding to natural background-Le., levels that would be found in the absence of man’s polluting activities. When he made the standards known, Environmental Protection Agency ( E P A ) Administrator William Ruckelshaus announced somberly, “If we have erred at all in setting these standards, we have erred on the side of public health.” There is no mistaking the fact that EPA has correctly gauged the mood of the public and its desire for clean air. The stringency of the standards and the vehemence with which they have been greeted in some quarters, however, bring up at least two important questions: First, can the standards be met by 1975, as the law requires? And second, what will the public’s reaction be if they are not? The second question is important because the answer to the first one is almost certainly no. For there are numerous good reasons to suppose that, at least in many of the nation’s biggest cities, meeting the standards by 1975, if indeed ever, will be well nigh impossible. This is recognized by EPA and, in fact, Ruckelshaus has specifically warned that six major cities will probably not meet the carbon monoxide standard in 1975 without some change in transportation schemes and commuting habits. Now, a change in driving habits strikes at the very heart of American individualism. Should the right to drive into a city be restricted, or perhaps entirely forbidden, then many people would start discovering for the first time the price of pollution control-something that has never really hit home before.
The crunch will come when people discover that they are both being inconvenienced and paying more for goods and services because of the drive for clean air. Their dedication to the cause, which up to now has been fervent to say the least, will then be severely tested. Some cynics have even predicted a complete reversal of current sentiment, leading back to the toleration of dirty air for the sake of job security and booming business. We doubt, however, if the old “where there’s muck, there’s money” days will return. There are many dangers, nevertheless, that the public will become impatient with the insistent promises made by the Congress that clean air is just around the corner. ( E P A is a good deal more realistic in this regard, as anyone who has read ES&T’S interview with Ruckelshaus in our May issue will appreciate.) The dangers will become especially acute when the bills start to come in-$300 extra for pollution control devices on a new car, for instance-and the air appears no cleaner. Now that government is being armed with the muscle (enforcement power, emission standards for new plants, etc.) to make things happen, people may not like what they see. Several years ago an official of the state of Maryland told ES&T that to meet the air quality standards adopted for sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, Baltimore would need to become an all-gas city, in which no coal or fuel oil whatsoever would be burned. The economic impact on city dwellers of a total switch to scarce and expensive fuels can easily be imagined. The truth is that clean air, although certainly a worthy goal for any civilized nation, is not going to be reached without pain, inconvenience, and a thorough-going reordering of priorities. Nothing that desirable just happens.
Volume 5, Number 6, June 1971 473
