The 1970's Los Angeles Photogenic Smog

Background
The expansion of the Interstate Highway System during the 1950s and 1960s helped propel suburban growth and signaled the demise of the city's electrified rail system, once the world's largest. The local geography compounded the local air pollution issues further.

The event
A Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ (written Yang-na by the Spanish), which has been translated as "poison oak place". Yang-na has also been translated as "the valley of smoke". Owing to geography, heavy reliance on automobiles, and the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, Los Angeles suffers from air pollution in the form of smog. The Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley are susceptible to atmospheric inversion, which holds in the exhausts from road vehicles, airplanes, locomotives, shipping, manufacturing, and other sources.

The smog season lasts from approximately May to October. While other large cities rely on rain to clear smog, Los Angeles gets only 15 inches (380 mm) of rain each year: pollution accumulates over many consecutive days. Issues of air quality in Los Angeles and other major cities led to the passage of early national environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Act. More recently, the state of California has led the nation in working to limit pollution by mandating low-emission vehicles. Smog is expected to continue to drop in the coming years because of aggressive steps to reduce it, which include electric and hybrid cars, improvements in mass transit, and other measures.

Smog was a problem since the late 1950s and was devastating the mid to late 1970s. Asma was growing fast. It started to return in the mid 2000s and were a major problem as of 2010.

The number of Stage 1 smog alerts in Los Angeles has declined from over 100 per year in the 1970s to almost zero in the new millennium. Despite improvement, the 2006 and 2007 annual reports of the American Lung Association ranked the city as the most polluted in the country with short-term particle pollution and year-round particle pollution. In 2008, the city was ranked the second most polluted and again had the highest year-round particulate pollution. The city met its goal of providing 20 percent of the city's power from renewable sources in 2010. The American Lung Association's 2013 survey ranks the metro area as having the nation's worst smog, and fourth in both short-term and year-round pollution amounts.

The attempted cure

 * 1) Tougher state and city pollution laws in 1977 and 1978.
 * 2) Cleaner technology in general after since the late 1980s.
 * 3) Some further tougher Federal laws in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Los Angeles air pollution
California's air is now the most polluted in the U.S.A.! Los Angeles has some of the most contaminated air in the country. With a population of roughly over 10 million, the Los Angeles area is a large basin with the Pacific Ocean to the west, and several mountain ranges with 11,000-foot peaks to the east and south. Diesel engines, ports, motor vehicles, and industries are main sources of air pollution in Los Angeles. Frequent sunny days and low rainfall contribute to ozone formation, as well as high levels of fine particles and dust.

Air pollution in Los Angeles has caused widespread concerns. In 2011, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) Survey on Californians and the Environment showed that 45% of citizens in Los Angeles consider air pollution to be a “big problem”, and 47% believe that the air quality of Los Angeles is worse than it was 10 years ago. In 2013, the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside area ranked the 1st most ozone-polluted city, the 4th most polluted city by annual particle pollution, and the 4th most polluted city by 24-hour particle pollution.

Both ozone and particle pollution are dangerous to human health. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) engaged a panel of expert scientists, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, to help them assess the evidence. The EPA released their most recent review of the current research on health threat of ozone and particle pollution.

 EPA Concludes Ozone Pollution Poses Serious Health Threats: 


 * 1) Causes respiratory harm (e.g. worsened asthma, worsened COPD, inflammation)
 * 2) Likely to cause early death (both short-term and long-term exposure)
 * 3) Likely to cause cardiovascular harm (e.g. heart attacks, strokes, heart disease, congestive heart failure)
 * 4) May cause harm to the central nervous system
 * 5) May cause reproductive and developmental harm - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Integrated Science Assessment for Ozone and Related Photochemical Oxidants, 2013. EPA/600/R-10/076F.

 EPA Concludes Fine Particle Pollution Poses Serious Health Threats: 


 * 1) Causes early death (both short-term and long-term exposure)
 * 2) Causes cardiovascular harm (e.g. heart attacks, strokes, heart disease, congestive heart failure)
 * 3) Likely to cause respiratory harm (e.g. worsened asthma, worsened COPD, inflammation)
 * 4) May cause cancer
 * 5) May cause reproductive and developmental harm-U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Integrated Science Assessment for Particulate Matter, December 2009. EPA 600/R-08/139F.

Helping the area to meet the national air quality standards and improve the health of local residents continues to be a priority for the EPA. One of EPA's highest priorities is to support the reduction of diesel emissions from ships, trucks, locomotives, and other diesel engines. In 2005, Congress authorized funding for the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA), a grant program, administrated by the EPA, to selectively retrofit or replace the older diesel engines most likely to impact human health. Since 2008, the DERA program has achieved impressive out outcome of improving air quality. The EPA also works with state and local partners to decrease emissions from port operations and to improve the efficient transportation of goods through the region. Both the EPA and the Port of Los Angeles are partners of the San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan, a sweeping plan aimed at significantly reducing the health risks posed by air pollution from port-related ships, trains, trucks, terminal equipment and harbor craft. For environmental justice, air pollution in low-income LA communities has received more attention. In 2011, the “Clean up Green up” campaign was launched to designate four low-income LA communities- Pacoima, Boyle Heights and Wilmington. This campaign aims to push green industries through incentives, including help obtaining permits and tax and utility rebates.

Although Los Angeles air pollution level has declined for the last few decades, citizens in Los Angeles still suffer from high level air pollution.

Global warming
Climate change has already affected Los Angeles with a 4 degree average temperature rise from 1878 to 2005 with a UCLA study predicting that coastal areas will rise 3 to 4 degrees in temperature and urban areas 4 to 4.5 degrees. In 2014, the fire season never finished in Southern California and studies have predicted that climate change will cause more frequent and larger fires by the end of the century. Climate change is also expected to affect sea levels which are expected to rise 5 to 24 inches from 2000 to 2050 leading to higher storm surge and waves, which could result in more extensive flooding that could threaten critical coastal infrastructure.

Los Angeles is also home to the nation's largest urban oil field. There are more than 700 active oil wells located within 1,500 feet of homes, churches, schools and hospitals in the city, a situation about which the EPA has voiced serious concerns.

Also see

 * Disasters