Weigh Gains Against Costs

The Spokane area recently got a glimpse of the pioneer days when people lived in closer touch with Mother Earth, and it wasn’t pretty. Fireplaces poured soot into the air while families huddled in chilly houses around the smoky light of kerosene lanterns and candles.

Our quality of life, including air quality, came a long way in the past century. Smokestacks no longer belch sulfurous fumes. Motor vehicles are cleaner. Visitors to industrial cities of Eastern Europe get a quick, choking reminder of how much progress we have made.

How much cleaner can our air be? What will it take to achieve higher levels of purity?

General Motors provided a hint last week when it unveiled the first mass-production electric car, developed at the behest of current clean-air standards. The EV1 requires a three-hour recharge after just 90 miles of driving and costs $34,000. Professing her deep concern for the environment, a beach beauty from TV’s “Baywatch” bubbled her enthusiasm for the new vehicle, but it remains to be seen how receptive normal consumers will be.

Federal air regulations would get tougher - a lot tougher, under new pollution standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. The changes tighten limits on ozone and particulates.

Between now and summer when the rules will take effect unless Congress intervenes, this will become one of the hottest issues in years. Debate is needed.

On EPA’s side is a cause everyone supports: public health. EPA cites research showing that ozone and particulate pollution sicken those with lung diseases such as asthma and hasten the death of thousands.

Cities, including Spokane, are struggling to comply with the current rules. Compliance with the tougher rules, EPA says, would reduce sickness, lengthen lives and cost $6 billion to $8 billion a year.

EPA’s cost estimates are suspect. That’s because it isn’t known what would have to be done to achieve compliance. States and cities would decide how to comply. Remedies would vary depending on each community’s situation.

But it’s known what produces the remaining levels of particulate and ozone pollution: Coal-fired electrical generating plants. Internal combustion engines - trucks, cars, lawn mowers. Fireplaces, wood stoves, barbecue grills. Agricultural field burning. Controlled burns in forests, a tactic needed to prevent disastrous firestorms.

Certainly it’s good to press for steadily cleaner air.

But when will we reach the point of diminishing returns? The coming debate must scrutinize the relative significance of the projected health gains, and compare them to the costs and sacrifices that compliance with the new rules would require. Many remaining pollution sources improve our lives.

The cleaner the air gets, the tougher cleanup choices become.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board