NEWS ADVISORY: Modesto Air Board Meeting Could Determine Air Quality in Valley

URGENT NEWS ADVISORY
April 27, 2007
Contact: Melissa Kelly-Ortega, Merced/Mariposa County Asthma Coalition,
(209) 261-7109

ATTENTION: Daybook/Assignment Desk


Valley Air Quality Groups Urge Air Board Not
to Delay Clean Air, Propose Solution to Smog
Pollution Crisis at Monday Board Meeting

MODESTO – Valley community groups and health advocates will call on San
Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District's governing board members to
reject a staff proposal Monday to delay meeting the health-based federal
smog standard by 11 years until 2024.

Community groups will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. Monday at Modesto
(4800 Enterprise Way). The Air Board meets in Fresno but some members will
be in Modesto (and Bakersfield) linked together via video conferencing.

Community groups and air quality experts will ask the Board to develop a
thorough plan for clean air and not allow polluters another 11 years to
"clean up their act," according to Tom Frantz, President of the Association
of Irritated Residents in Shafter.

Previously, the Board had proposed to clean the air in one of the nation's
dirtiest air basins by 2013. Clean-air advocates are requesting the date be
re-set to no longer than 2017.

"If the Board adopts the staff proposal to delay the cleanup of our dirty
air, a child born today will have to wait until high school graduation to
breathe clean air," said Lisa Kayser-Grant of Moms Clean Air Network in
Merced. "That is unacceptable."

The groups call on Board members to enact strict pollution control
requirements on sources of smog-forming pollution while pushing for healthy
air for all Valley residents by 2017. They point to an independent
clean-up plan that found that 95 percent of all needed reductions could be
achieved by 2013, the current deadline.

They also ask for an Environmental Impact Report to assess the health costs
and effects from any decision to delay clean-up, and some proponents make a
veiled threat at litigation unless the District discloses those effects as
required by California law.

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