FORT WAYNE – Indiana’s governor had come to what many believe is the state’s capital of pollution to trumpet historic reductions in the poisons dumped into the air.

“Today is an historical first and a major milestone,” Gov. Mitch Daniels told the Gary Chamber of Commerce on April 30 as he announced that, for the first time in the state’s history, all 92 counties had met federal standards for ground-level ozone, a powerful respiratory agent and the main ingredient in smog.

It was indeed a major milestone – if it were 1997.

“There’s two ways to look at it,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a Washington-based environmental watchdog. “It’s a sign of progress, and that’s a good thing. It shows we can make progress toward clean air without disrupting the economy.”

But the standard Indiana met is woefully out-of-date.

“The less good news is those standards are no longer viewed as adequate for protecting people’s health,” O’Donnell said. “Even the EPA under President Bush recognized that.”

The standards Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency set in March 2008 would have replaced the looser 1997 rules. But those standards were never implemented because states, public health and environmental groups sued the government when it was revealed the proposed standards were weaker than what the EPA’s own scientists had said was needed. In essence, the EPA was accused of violating federal law by not enforcing the Clean Air Act.

But even under the never-implemented 2008 standard, at least a dozen Indiana counties would be in violation, the EPA estimates. And now, under President Obama, the EPA is proposing even tougher standards, which could put 27 Hoosier counties in violation, including Allen and Huntington.

The American Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report has given Allen County a grade of F two years in a row because of ozone levels.

Daniels admits the state is trying to hit a moving target.

“This is a limbo contest; each time we get under the bar, we know that soon we’ll be aiming for one that’s even lower,” Daniels said.

For now, no one knows how much lower. The EPA expects to announce its proposal by Aug. 31; the agency has already said the ozone standard will be between 60 parts per billion and 70 parts per billion. The current standard – the one set in 1997 – is 85 parts per billion.

“The bottom line is the standard needs to be more protective,” O’Donnell said.

Economic sanctions

So what happens if a county’s air violates the ozone standard?

In addition to the fact that its residents are breathing contaminated air – air that can send asthmatics, children and the elderly to the hospital – there can be economic consequences, including a cap on the amount of ozone released by businesses.

That would mean a new business would not be able to locate in the county unless the county would stay under the cap, either by the new business not releasing ozone or an existing company cutting the amount it releases.

A county’s violation of the ozone standard can also lead to changes such as gas stations having to sell different blends of gasoline that burn cleaner and mandatory tailpipe emissions tests for cars and trucks, with failing vehicles forced to get repaired or taken off the road.

In fact, though Lake and Porter counties now meet the ozone standard, the Clean Air Car Check and reformulated fuels programs will continue there, Daniels said, in an effort to meet whatever future standards are.

Violating the standard – being in “non-attainment status,” in EPA-speak – is a red flag for companies scouting locations because of the added permit requirements.

“It could literally be an automatic check-off,” said Scott Naltner, executive vice president of the Fort Wayne-Allen County Economic Development Alliance. “If you’ve got two comparable sites and one’s in attainment and one is not, the choice (of where to locate) is probably obvious.”

Counties and states will have up to 20 years to meet the new limits, depending on how severely they are out of compliance, but will have to submit plans for meeting the new limits by the end of 2013 or early 2014.

Naltner points out that Allen County will be far from the only county in non-attainment status. The EPA says 322 counties are violating the suspended 2008 standard; if it is lowered to 60 parts per billion, about 650 out of 675 monitored counties would be in violation.

“It’s not an Allen County thing, it’s a national deal,” Naltner said. “We would still remain competitive.”

Some argue that the way to really be competitive would be to simply improve the air quality voluntarily.

“The more we see these air-quality studies, study after study shows the health improvements are much more than we initially accounted for,” said Steven Chester, who was the director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for seven years until stepping down in January.

“What I like to say about the cost of compliance is, yeah, there are costs already for non-compliance – health care, lost work days, increased hospitalization. That’s not affordable to industry, either.”

The EPA says that although there is a cost to lowering any emission standard, those costs are outweighed by the health benefits of cleaner air. The agency estimates the cost of the new ozone standard in 2020 – even if it is set as low as 60 parts per billion – could be as low as $52 billion a year, while the benefits could be as high as $100 billion a year.

“Businesses ought to look at it not just in terms of initial capital outlay,” Chester said. “Compare ongoing, cumulative health care costs and loss of productivity costs to that capital outlay.”

Is your air safe?

The ozone standard is part of a category of rules called National Ambient Air Quality Standards. While most environmental rules deal with pollution at the source – how much can come out of a smokestack or go into a river – the air-quality standards are based on measurements taken by air monitors placed in urban areas.

Rather than a single factory or power plant breaking the law, the entire community can be subject to sanctions, even if no single source is in violation.

“The difference is this measurement is designed to let the community know whether the air they’re breathing in their community is safe or not,” Clean Air Watch’s O’Donnell said. “That’s what leads to specific limits on smokestacks and tailpipes.”

The fact that standards have worked so well makes it harder to implement new ones, Chester said.

“When the EPA first came into play, the Cuyahoga River was on fire. There was black smoke belching from smokestacks. We don’t have that anymore,” he said.

“I think that’s why people struggle with climate change – it’s not real tangible to them. But it’s there, it’s real, and it’s a real concern.”

dstockman@jg.net

The Associated Press contributed to this report.