Smog

A bill aimed at nudging people out of their cars and onto mass transit was bolstered in Annapolis yesterday by a rare coalition of environmentalists and business groups."

Environmental Elements Corp. has a new solution for power plants that want to slash their smog-inducing emissions: fertilizer pellets.EEC, a Baltimore-based maker of pollution control equipment for utilities and pulp paper mills, has been experiencing a solid rebound in its long-dormant business, thanks to federal regulations that clamp down on how much smog ingredient power plants can emit.But company officials believe that the new technology using fertilizer, licensed from two companies and refined by EEC, will put another arrow in its quiver.

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.

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.

For the first time in 1998, the Baltimore-area forecast calls for unhealthy levels of smog, as pollution percolates in the still air under cloudless skies.The Maryland Department of Environment has issued a "code orange" smog watch for today, predicting moderately unhealthy levels of air pollution.Forecasters blame the smog on a noxious brew of chemicals -- emissions from cars, lawn mowers, industrial smokestacks and even paint fumes -- that simmers under hot, clear skies to form potentially harmful ozone.

Marylanders should see cleaner air -- and perhaps slightly higher utility bills -- under a 22-state federal smog-reduction program that calls for the state to make some of the steepest pollution cuts on the East Coast.The air emissions rules, announced by the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday, are designed to reduce the amount of smog-causing ozone that flows from the Midwest and South toward the coast. The pollutants, which can travel hundreds of miles, make it difficult for Eastern states to clean up their dirty air and contribute to pollution of the Chesapeake Bay.The federal rules will require 22 states in the eastern third of the country to cut their emissions of nitrogen oxide, an ingredient of smog, by about 28 percent beginning in 2003.

YOU SHOULDN'T grill a steak. But if you must, don't use lighter fluid to ignite the charcoal. If the drought isn't burning up your lawn fast enough, you can mow. But don't refuel your mower by day because temperatures will cook the fumes. Night is also the preferred time to gas up your car, but don't travel alone. Either car-pool or ride the bus, which you can do free in some areas during Maryland's latest air-pollution alert.State health, environmental and transportation officials have plenty of advice and directives to dispense as Maryland copes with persistent Code Red air pollution conditions.

DURING THE RECENT "Code Red" smog siege, Maryland suffered some of the worst smog of the 1990s. Baltimore weathercasters were quick to rattle off the standard litany of "what you can do" to fight smog: limit driving, take public transportation, stop mowing the lawn, etc.But they missed the single most important action that could help reduce the persistent and dangerous smog: for Maryland officials to take aggressive action to reduce the air pollution that...

THE NO-GROWTHERS and the go-growthers seem to agree that Carroll County needs to expand its industrial base. Both to ease the burden of residential taxes on the county budget and to provide more local employment opportunities.With only 12 percent of the county's tax base in commercial/industrial property, Carroll trails other Maryland metropolitan counties. And as most people are aware, a new business typically pays more in taxes than it demands in services, the direct opposite of new residents.

WHILE MARYLAND agonizes over required auto-exhaust tests on dynamometer-treadmills, in order to clean up the air and prevent the loss of $100 million in federal highway funds, those efforts may be undermined by the inaction of other states.Some states have not filed air improvement plans with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, seriously hampering the drive for regional solutions to reduce pollution.The Ozone Transport Commission (consisting of Maryland, 13 other northeastern states and the District of Columbia)

The Sun's Olympic correspondents, Rick Maese and Kevin Van Valkenburg, are blogging back and forth to each other at baltimoresun.com/olympicsblog. Some excerpts: How far we've come: Four years ago, we came to the Olympics outfitted with gas masks to protect us from terrorist attacks; today, we need only be protected from the byproducts of the modern world. Sorry to get all Al Gore on you there ... Truth is, I have been surprised by how few cars I've seen on the road these past couple of days (and surprised that it's had little visible effect on the pollution ... seriously, Kevin, if we have time tomorrow, can we find time to build a smogman?

Vaccine Mumps outbreak could lead to 2nd booster shot Most of the college students who got the mumps in a big 2006 outbreak had received the recommended two vaccine shots, according to a study that raises questions about whether a new vaccine or another booster shot is needed. The outbreak was the biggest in the U.S. since states began requiring a second shot for youngsters in 1990. Nearly 6,600 people became sick with the mumps, mostly in eight Midwest states, and the hardest-hit group was college students.

NEW YORK -- El Nuevo San Juan Health Center sits in a bathtub of vehicle exhaust, its South Bronx neighborhood boxed in by expressways and choked with traffic. Despite all the tailpipes, asthma hospitalization rates among children here have fallen by two-thirds over the past decade. Dr. Samuel De Leon, the clinic's medical director, says one reason is the drop in ozone air pollution since New York adopted California's tough vehicle emission standards. "The South Bronx is ground zero for asthma, with all of our trucks and traffic," said De Leon, a pulmonologist.

THE QUESTION What was your favorite underrated concert movie, one that quietly touched the soul or maybe came and went in a flash of pyrotechnics? WHAT YOU SAY For me, The Harder They Come and Rockers were the all-time greatest concert movies. They introduced me to reggae and, even better, to a culture that lives on far less yet seems to get a lot more out of it than the rest of us. BECKY SQUIRES, ALEXANDRIA, VA. THE NEXT QUESTION Global warming is nothing to laugh at, the arrival next week of the animated comedy Ice Age: The Meltdown notwithstanding.

LOS ANGELES - The twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach began operating on weekends and evenings yesterday in an initiative designed to ease Southern California's worst-in-the-nation traffic congestion and smog. By expanding beyond regular Monday-through-Friday business hours, officials hope to reduce the ports' tangle of shipping trucks, which would also cut exhaust emissions released when the vehicles sit in stalled traffic. "The economic benefits [of the port] are not without a cost to our quality of life," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said yesterday as he described the program while trucks revved in the distance.

A parade of more than 50 hybrid vehicles wove through the narrow streets of Annapolis and circled the State House yesterday, creating a brief mini-traffic jam in the name of cleaner air. The event was designed to show support for the Clean Cars Act, a bill that would require Maryland to adopt tougher emission standards by the 2009 model year. Car owners came from as far away as Frederick, Allegany County and Takoma Park to express their support, with placards taped to their cars that read "I'd rather be driving a clean car," "Stop climate change" and "Maryland Clean Cars Now."

It's considered the most mysterious corner of the solar system: a secretive, smog-shrouded world nearly a billion miles from the sun, where volcanoes spew frozen ammonia slush and liquid natural gas rains down from the skies. At least that's what scientists think might be going on beneath the amber-hued haze of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. For nearly four centuries, the moon's thick atmosphere has stymied every attempt to get a clear picture of the its surface. But Titan's secret life may be coming to an end. Just after 11 tonight, NASA's Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft is scheduled to spring loose a piggyback probe called Huygens.

A toxic gasoline additive that caused an uproar in the Fallston area of Harford County this past summer has been showing up with growing frequency in drinking-water wells across Maryland, state officials said yesterday. But environmental regulators and oil industry officials alike warned lawmakers in Annapolis that a rush to ban the additive MTBE in Maryland could lead to gas shortages and price spikes, and might even pose environmental problems. State officials told members of the House Environmental Matters Committee that despite costly upgrades to gas stations in the 1990s to curtail fuel leaks, wells continue to get fouled.

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency will officially designate today about 470 of the United States' 2,700 counties as having air with unhealthy levels of ozone or smog, EPA officials said yesterday. The designation coincides with a new, more protective standard that today becomes the country's primary gauge for judging smog levels. The ozone levels in many of the designated counties, which include 100 metropolitan areas and at least eight popular national parks, have dropped in recent years, EPA Administrator Michael O. Leavitt said in remarks to the National Press Club.

Announcing a new, market-driven air pollution control program yesterday, the chief of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the plan would help rid Maryland of persistent smog that threatens the health of one in three state residents. But state officials, pollution experts and environmentalists disagreed, saying that the plan won't guarantee a solution to Maryland's worst air pollution problem: a stream of gases and particles flowing east from old, coal-burning power plants in the Midwest.