Spokane gets a breath of fresh air

The lawn-mowing season is months away, but here’s a bit of information, courtesy of Erik Skelton, director of the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority, to fascinate you as you wait:

An older gasoline-powered lawn mower generates about the same amount of air pollution as 60 – that’s six-oh – new cars.

Such air-quality trivia is timely, given recent news from the federal Environmental Protection Agency that Spokane and Kootenai counties are cleaning up their air. Skelton expects Spokane County to escape its decade-old designation as a non-attainment area for federal ambient air quality standards. At one time Spokane was listed, along with Los Angeles, in a handful of cities considered to have the worst carbon monoxide and particulate problems in the country.

Things have improved since then, thanks partly to advances in automotive technology, but also to some difficult, often unpopular, policy choices and regulatory actions – mandatory auto inspections, restrictions on wood stoves and fireplaces, use of oxygenated fuel during the winter, paving dirt roads. …

Except for some dust storms (which are exempted as unavoidable natural occurrences), Spokane County hasn’t had a violation for large particulates, known as PM-10, since 1993. It hasn’t had a carbon monoxide violation since 1996.

The obligatory paperwork to return to attainment status, which includes a plan for maintaining clean-air standards for the next 10 years, is almost completed and will be submitted soon. Skelton expects approval.

That would be welcome news for the community’s image and, more important, for the community’s health, especially to those with heart and respiratory conditions.

But while the news is good, it shouldn’t be overstated. It’s true that in three years of monitoring, the region has recorded no violations for either carbon monoxide or the ultrafine particulates, known as PM-2.5, that penetrate deeper into the respiratory system. But the recorded levels are only barely below violation levels.

In addition, the EPA is thinking about tightening those standards. Spokane’s ozone levels, meanwhile, are “trending upward,” according to Skelton.

The community can take comfort from its success, but this is no time to relax. As in the past, staying in compliance will probably require challenging steps.

But creative minds already are producing voluntary programs to facilitate progress. SCAPCA and Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs, for example, collaborate on a vehicle-repair subsidy that helps low-income participants have affordable, low-polluting transportation. SCAPCA is helping school districts retrofit older diesel-burning school buses with anti-pollution equipment.

Consumer choices have a role to play, too, from riding the bus to driving a clean-running vehicle.

And, who knows, maybe trading in that vintage lawn mower on a battery-powered model next spring.