By Chung Liu, D.Env. South Coast Air Quality Management District Technology has formed the basis of pollution control progress in the United States since the advent of the environmental movement. Thanks to technology, which has enabled us to manage and prevent pollution, the days of burning rivers, belching smokestacks and oozing chemical landfills that inspired the first Earth Day in 1970 are but history to today s students. Nowhere has this been truer than in Southern California. Today, autos run cleaner thanks to catalytic converters, cleaner gasoline and modern-day electronic ignition control systems.
Factories use cleaner energy sources and new paints, solvents and other materials that pollute less.
All were pioneered to clean up the region s air. While the Los Angeles metropolitan area still has the worst air pollution in the nation, the progress toward cleaner air has been dramatic over the past 10 years. The number of days over the federal one-hour ozone standard declined from 178 in 1988 to 43 so far in 1999. At the same time, the number of Stage 1 Episode days when residents are advised to remain indoors declined from 77 to zero so far this year. The South Coast Air Quality Management District s clean fuels program has been an important and driving force behind this improvement.