“You're part of the traffic you’re stuck in”

The subject of zone can be confusing. First, there’s the ozone layer, which is a good thing. The ozone layer is one layer of the earth’s stratosphere, located between six and 30 miles above the Earth’s surface, and it performs a valuable function. It acts as sort of an outer space sponge by absorbing some of the sun’s radiation before it strikes Earth. We need some radiation to survive, but too much of it can be harmful and the ozone layer protects us from getting too much of it, especially that form of radiation known as ultraviolet radiation which can cause everything from sunburns to cancers.

Then there’s ground-level ozone which is not that good of a thing. It is essentially man-made, formed from the photochemical reaction between two major classes of pollutants, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. The most common sources of volatile organic compounds are chemical plants, gasoline pumps, oil-based paints, auto body shops and print shops. The most common source of nitrogen oxides are power plants, industrial furnaces and boilers, and motor vehicles.

However, even if you live in an area like Kyle, where you wouldn’t think a multitude of these sources are to be found, wind can carry ozone hundreds of miles from their source points. That’s why, in places where ozone is formed, it is usually heaviest during the afternoon when the heat is the most intense. However, areas downwind from the source points can have its highest levels during the late afternoon or early evening hours.

Breathing this ground level ozone can harmfully affect the human respiratory system, decrease lung functionality and inflame human airways resulting in coughing; throat irritation; pain, burning or discomfort in the chest when taking a deep breath; and/or chest tightness, wheezing or shortness of breath. Evidence also suggests highly daily ozone concentrations are associated with increased asthma attacks, hospital admissions and deaths. Some have compared ozone’s effects as having a sunburn inside your lung.

Ozone is most likely to be at its highest levels on hot, sunny days; however high ozone levels have been found in mountainous sections of the western United States when snow was on the ground and the temperature was near or even below freezing.

There are steps people can take to reduce ground level ozone:

• Conserve electricity and set air conditioner thermostats at higher temperatures
• Try car pooling to work or, if you don’t live far from your place of employment, bicycle or walk to work.
• Refuel cars and trucks after dusk.
• Combine trips as much as possible; i.e., grocery shopping or errand running on your way home from work.
• Limit engine idling. (This means the last thing we need in and around Kyle is a Godzilla truck stop where diesel engines are constantly idling.)
• Use household, workshop and garden chemicals in such a way that it limits evaporation and don’t use them at all on days forecast to be high ozone level days.
• And speaking of high ozone level days, don’t, on these days, light up your fireplace or wood-burning stove, don’t use gas-powered lawn and garden equipment, and don’t burn leaves, trash or any other materials.

Right now, these above precautions are not that necessary for Kyle because, as Fred Blood, air quality program specialist for the Central Texas Clean Air Association, told the City Council Tuesday night "Right now in Central Texas we are well in compliance with all the regulations having to do with air quality." But then he cautioned: "We are close to the level of being over in the non-compliant level for ozone."

"Generally, we have good air quality on 70 percent of the days,’ Blood said. "The days we don’t have good air quality it’s usually due to what they call particulate matter. We also have high ozone days."

Blood said the EPA re-examines its air quality standards every five years and the new five-year report is due around October. He said the agency is about to reduce the safe/unsafe ozone level standard, but no one knows for sure what the standard will be until that report is made public.

"Right now they are talking about a range of 65 to 70 parts per billion," he said. "Our level in this region is 69 parts per billion. So if they lower it to 70, we’re OK. If they lower it to 65, we’ll be non-attainment, which is something you don’t want to be."

Blood said the population at risk on high ozone days includes "children under the age of 11, people over the age of 70, people that already have pulmonary problems and people working heavily in the environment (i.e., outdoors)" and that could amount to almost 40 percent of the local population.

"We don’t want to be in non-attainment because it makes it difficult to build new roads," Blood said. "You have to prove the roads will be in compliance and not create more ozone."

He said it could also affect industrial growth. For example, he said, Toyota originally planned to locate a plant in Fort Worth, but because that area had a non-containment designation, the construction regulations were strict enough that it forced Toyota to instead locate the facility in San Antonio.

"Anything that has federal money in it is going to be harder to get because you’re going to have to prove the impacts on whatever that money is on ozone levels," he said.

Blood said the Central Texas Clean Air Coalition was formed to convince communities to take actions to reduce ozone before the feds come in and ordered such actions. He said Kyle, Leander, Lakeway, Lago Vista, Manor are the only cities in Central Texas with a population of at least 5,000 who are not members of the Coalition, and Leaner appears set to join before the end of the month.

"I’m here tonight to see if I can get you to join," he said. However, not only did no one on the council even hint at the possibility of joining the coalition, the notion was met with some hostility from council member Shane Arabie who demanded from Blood "What’s in it for us?" should the city join since, he said, the city could act on its own to reduce ozone levels.

"Just the recognition of being part of the group that does that cleanup," Blood said.

Blood said the goal of the coalition is to make sure Central Texas stays in containment when it comes to ozone levels. "We want to continue to reduce the amount of ozone," he continued. "If we get in violation of the standard, we want to get back into the standard as quickly and as cheaply as we can. In the meantime we want to reduce exposure of vulnerable populations. We want to minimize the cost to the region of non-attainment designation."

He said members of the coalition are asked to take at least three steps to reduce ozone levels "and this could be as simple as direct deposit of pay checks," informing residents of high ozone days "so they can protect themselves," and equipment replacement.

"The single most effective way we have to reduce ozone is what we do with our vehicles," Blood told the council. "And particularly the big diesels you might have for construction or those owned by the contractors that you hire to do the construction. Make sure that they have the newer diesels because they are much cleaner."

In response to a question from Mayor Pro Tem David Wilson, Blood said "One of the requirements if we go into non-containment is probably going to be what they call an emissions reduction program where they require an inspection of every vehicle on the road to pass an emission test that’s part of the safety inspection for the area."

He said Travis and Williamson counties are the only two counties in the country that require such testing even though they are in containment. "That was the commitment those counties were willing to make sure that we had clean air." He said Hays County commissioners voted unanimously to do the same thing but because the city of San Marcos, by one vote, nixed the idea, it was dropped. Wilson wanted to know if the reason San Marcos opposed it was because of the "burden on the poorest of our citizens."

Blood said the emissions test themselves add about $20 to cost of a state inspection and there are programs in place for lower income drivers so that "We can pay for them to fix up their car or replace it." He said that program is funded with $2 of that $20 fee.

Mayor Todd Webster asked Blood how much of the Ozone problem was Kyle actually responsible for. Blood said 70 percent of the ozone comes from someplace else, "so we have 30 percent we can play with. Of that, about half of it comes from on-road vehicles, thanks to the interstate and NAFTA traffic. We like to remind people that when you are struck in traffic you’re part of the traffic you’re stuck in."

In response to a question from council member Damon Fogley on the ozone-level difference among the various counties, Blood said a lot of that was due to "ambient wind direction" and the weather.

"The perfect ozone weather is between 95 and 105 degrees, no wind and what we call the dog days of summer," he said. "Over the last 15 years, all except for about a half dozen cases, our highest ozone days have been between the middle of August and the middle of September. I think part of that is due to the climatology of this area when we hit the hit, stagnant days of summer. I also think a lot of it has to do with the start of school and people trying to figure out how to get around and a bunch of students trying to figure out how they are going to get to and from classes. We have a lot of activity on the roads at that time that you don’t have earlier in the summer."