Air Pollution

ALFRED DESIO, 74 Dancer, choreographer Dancer and choreographer Alfred Desio, a Broadway veteran who invented a form of electronically enhanced tap dancing called Tap-Tronics, died Wednesday. Mr. Desio died of complications of bladder cancer at Olympia Medical Center in Los Angeles, his wife and dance collaborator, Louise Reichlin, said Friday. Mr. Desio created Tap-Tronics in the 1980s, a concept that allows tap dancers to make their own music by means of microphones in their shoes.

Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts will receive $3 million from an Ohio-based power company as part of one of the largest settlements ever recorded in a pollution lawsuit, according to state officials. American Electric Power Services Corp. agreed yesterday to install $4.6 billion in pollution-control equipment on 16 coal-burning power plants and pay $15 million in penalties. The settlement ends a lawsuit brought in 1999 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and later joined by Maryland and seven other states, as well as 13 environmental groups.

INCREASES IN auto air pollution in the Baltimore region since 1990 are disappointing, given state and federal efforts to curb harmful tailpipe emissions. Further action is needed to reduce vehicle pollutants in the region, one of the nation's worst for unhealthy smog. That includes analyzing new road proposals to assure that the traffic generated will meet federal clean air standards.But for road projects under way, with plans, designs and land in hand, there's no reason to apply an ever-changing, ever-tougher set of standards.

A FEDERAL appeals court has blocked efforts to reduce air pollution and make it safer for millions of Americans to breathe more easily. It's a curious decision that will surely be appealed again and, likely, won. It must be, if the nation is to effectively clean up our air.The Environmental Protection Agency's plan to cut particulate (soot) emissions and smog-causing, ground-level ozone was not based on "intelligible principle," the panel of judges ruled. Congress could not delegate such broad authority to the agency, the judges said.

Maryland's plan to clean up the air in metropolitan Baltimore and the Washington suburbs is all right as far as it goes, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said yesterday. But it has to go further.The agency said it would give preliminary approval to the state proposals for tightening automobile and industry emission standards, but said Maryland has to get 13 more tons of the pollutants that cause smog out of the air.Baltimore is among nine metropolitan areas with cleanup plans that fall short of federal clean air standards.

Tax incentives, new infrastructure can cut pollutionMarylanders won't breathe easier until we reduce air pollution by even more than the 13 tons per day federal officials say is the minimum reduction needed by 2002.As The Sun's editorial "Cleaning the air" (Dec. 4) notes, controlling pollution from old dirty power plants and from the sport utility vehicles and light trucks now allowed to pollute more than cars and reducing sulfur in fuel are vital to protecting public health and regional growth.

Environmental Elements Corp., a Baltimore-based air pollution control company, said yesterday it is seeking to sell a minority stake in the company to a strategic partner.The company, which recently concluded its first profitable fiscal year since 1992, said it has hired Pedersen Kammert & Co. LLC to explore the possible sale of a stake worth $15 million to $30 million."Conditions in our industry have improved significantly, and our bookings and backlog are the strongest we have seen in the last several years," said E. H. Verdery, chairman and chief executive officer.

FIFTY years ago, a dense mixture of fog and smoke settled over Donora, Pa., a gritty steel mill town of 12,300 people situated on the Monongahela River, 28 miles south of Pittsburgh.When rains and wind cleared away the smog five days later, 17 people had died. Four others who had become ill during the pollution siege died within two months. A government study later concluded that 5,910 persons -- nearly half the population -- had been made ill by the smog.Writers described the Donora incident as the Hiroshima of air pollution -- a disaster that first brought smog to national attention.

BEIJING -- Quaint, practical and environmentally safe, the bicycle is China's most popular way to get around and as much a part of the national experience as chopsticks. On weekdays, hundreds of thousands of cyclists pour over the capital's broad boulevards and weave along its narrow lanes.If a recent government decision is any indication, though, the bicycle proliferation in Beijing could slowly be coming to an end. Last month, city officials for the first time banned bicycles from one of the capital's roads -- East Xisi Street, about a mile northwest of the Forbidden City.

Baltimore-area leaders are poised to adopt a blueprint for the sprawling region's transportation needs that foresees worsening traffic tie-ups over the next 20 years despite spending $16 billion on highway and transit projects.That prospect irks environmentalists and highway builders alike, though for different reasons."In our minds it's a lot of money to spend on something that doubles congestion and worsens air quality," said Alfred W. Barry III, spokesman for a coalition of environmental and urban revitalization groups.

Twelve states, including Maryland, and the District of Columbia urged the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday to adopt more rigorous national policies so they can meet federal air pollution reduction requirements for the region. The Ozone Transport Commission approved a statement that said states will have trouble meeting air pollution reduction goals on time without tougher national laws. The commission comprises 12 Northeastern states and the District of Columbia, and was formed by the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. Ted Aburn, director of the Maryland Department of the Environment's Air and Radiation Management Administration, said though many states on the commission have made strides in cleaning the air, meeting EPA requirements is difficult when a lot of the pollution comes from other states.

For those wondering just how much impact cleaning up the air can have, researchers now have a much fuller picture. Reductions in particulate air pollution during the 1980s and 1990s led to an average five-month increase in life expectancy in 51 U.S. metropolitan areas, with some of the more initially polluted cities such as Pittsburgh and Buffalo, N.Y., showing a 10-month increase, researchers will report today. Baltimore was not among cities studied. The reductions in pollution accounted for about 15 percent of the nearly three-year increase in life expectancy during the period, said epidemiologist C. Arden Pope III of Brigham Young University, lead author of the study appearing in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Midshipman suspected of having meningitis dies A first-year student at the Naval Academy died last night at University of Maryland Medical Center after he was hospitalized last week for a suspected case of bacterial meningitis, an academy spokeswoman said. The 20-year-old's name is being withheld pending family notification. The midshipman became ill Wednesday at Bancroft Hall and was taken to Baltimore Washington Medical Center for initial treatment. As a precaution, 44 midshipmen, staff members and first responders who had close contact with the student have been taking antibiotics and are being monitored by medical staff.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is co-sponsoring two forums on growth and land-use issues in Frederick and Harford counties next week. Meetings will be held at 7 p.m. Monday at the C. Burr Artz Public Library, 110 E. Patrick St., Frederick, and 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Bel Air Library, 100 E. Pennsylvania Ave., Bel Air. Terry Cummings, manager of advocacy for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, deputy director of 1000 Friends of Maryland,...

Seventeen years after the smoke-belching coke ovens at Sparrows Point were shut down because of chronic pollution, the plant's new owner is considering a new plant at the sprawling Baltimore County steel mill, a move that would mean new jobs and help cement its future but is also likely to raise concerns in a community tinged with memories of black soot and foul air. The Russian steel company Severstal, which completed an $810 million deal to buy the...

The Maryland Senate approved an amendment yesterday that environmentalists and the O'Malley administration say would significantly weaken a bill designed to reduce global warming pollution. The Global Warming Solutions Act would require a 25 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions from Maryland businesses by 2020. But under the amendment approved yesterday, the state's environmental agency would have to get the General Assembly's approval each time it issued rules to cut the pollution.

Maryland has dirty air and it's going to stay dirty longer, thanks to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Once again, the Bush administration has chosen industry over science, and the public will pay the price. Shame on President Bush. EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson's decision last week to lower the pollution standard from 84 to 75 units of ozone for every billion units of air means improvements in air quality here will be slower than they should be. It was a judgment likely to save industry billions in pollution control investments but one with serious consequences for the health of thousands of Americans.

The Mirant company will pay $250,000 in penalties for repeatedly violating air pollution limits at three of Maryland's largest coal-fired power plants, state officials said yesterday. The penalties are part of a consent decree settling a state complaint against the Atlanta-based company for pollution violations at its plants in Prince George's, Montgomery and Charles counties. Soot and fine particulate matter in the smoke from coal-fired plants have been linked to asthma and heart attacks, and excessive amounts of mercury can cause brain damage in babies.

GOP plan seeks repeal of computer-services tax Republican delegates are proposing an alternative budget plan they say would allow Maryland to repeal its new tax on computer services, solve the state's remaining budget problems and shore up the rainy day fund by limiting the rate of growth in spending. The GOP legislators would accept all the cuts proposed by the nonpartisan Department of Legislative Services; defer saving for state employee retirement benefits; put off funding a portion of the state's landmark education funding program designed to help systems where costs are high; eliminate vacant positions; reduce transportation funding by $100 million; and pay for some capital projects with bonds instead of operating funds.

Clean air costs While Maryland legislators debate a bill aimed at significant reductions in state carbon emissions over the next decade, there is another more obvious step they could quickly take to improve enforcement of existing air pollution laws - hire more inspectors. The Maryland Department of the Environment has only 18 inspectors to assess 11,600 sources of pollution, 26 short of the number needed. Legislation proposed by Sen. Brian E. Frosh of Montgomery County would increase air pollution fees, raising $2 million more a year that would be used to hire extra inspectors.