Water and Power Associates Informing the Public about Critical Water and Energy Issues facing Los Angeles and California

Historical Notes

Air pollution reached its worst levels in Los Angeles during the 1940s and 1950s.  Millions of people driving millions of cars plus temperature inversion provided Los Angeles with a near perfect environment for the production and containment of photochemical smog.

Historical Notes

Los Angeles suffered from smog well before World War II. Industrial smoke and fumes were so thick during one day in 1903 that residents mistook it for an eclipse of the sun. From 1905 to 1912, the Los Angeles City Council adopted several measures to combat dense smoke emissions. As the century progressed, the city sprawled and industry boomed, overwhelming those first primitive air pollution control measures.*

Historical Notes

On Oct. 14, 1947, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors established the nation's first air pollution control program by creating the Los Angeles County Air Pollution Control District.

Historical Notes

The first California “Smog Check” program wasn't implemented until 1984.

Historical Notes

Massive wartime immigration to a city built for cars had made L.A. the largest car market the industry had ever seen. But the influx of cars and industry, combined with a geography that traps fumes like a big bowl, had caught up with Angelenos.

Historical Notes

The day after the first big smog, city officials pointed to the Southern California Gas Company's Aliso Street Plant as the source of the thick cloud. The facility manufactured an ingredient in synthetic rubber called butadiene.

Public pressure temporarily shut down the Aliso Street Plant, but the smog episodes continued to get even worse. Undeterred, Los Angeles Mayor Fetcher Bowron announced in August that there would be "an entire elimination" of the problem within four months.

But the search for the culprit of the "gas attacks" -- and the ensuing battle to curb the culprit's emissions -- was just beginning.*

Historical Notes

The real cause of L.A. smog wasn’t determiend until the 1950s.  The scientist who solved the smog mystery was Arie Haagen-Smit, a chemist at the California Institute of Technology. He was the first to recognize that ozone was the primary source of the haze. Ozone is created when partially unburned exhaust from automobiles and the hydrocarbons from oil refineries are hit by sunlight. Haagen-Smit also demonstrated that the ozone was the cause of the bleach smell L.A. residents were reporting, as well as the source of their eye irritation and respiratory problems.*

Historical Notes

Photograph caption dated September 9 1954 reads, "This Navy blimp is gathering smog samples over downtown Los Angeles for study seeking solution to smog problem. Samples are taken at three different levels--500, 1,000 feet and at top of smog layer."

Historical Notes

On some days, the air was so polluted that parents kept their kids out of school; athletes trained indoors; citrus growers and sugar-beet producers watched in dismay as their crops withered; the elderly and young crowded into doctors' offices and hospital ERs with throbbing heads and shortness of breath. ^

Historical Notes

Until the late 1950s most people burned their trash in their own backyards using incinerators similar (but smaller) to the one seen above.

Historical Notes

All refuse burning in Los Angeles ended October 1, 1957 when Air Pollution Control District's ban on residential incinerators became effective.

Historical Notes

In addition to incinerators, Los Angeles' severe smog problem in the early 1950s was caused by several factors: rapid population growth and industrialization after World War II, a doubling of automobiles between 1940 and 1950, geographic and weather conditions that trapped pollutants, and the lack of emissions controls on vehicles and industries.

Historical Notes

By the mid 1950s there was no doubt among scientists that cars were a primary factor in LA’s smog crisis.
However, Los Angeles had no influence over the auto manufacturers. Smog wasn’t yet a national problem and it was very easy to dismiss smog as a quirk of LA geography.

Automakers were slow to respond.  They were wary of any change that would add cost to their vehicles.  As a result of public pressure, emission regulations would come to pass.  But, it would take another two decades for things to change.

It wasn’t until 1975 that the U.S. required new cars to have catalytic converters, the key piece of technology that allowed everything to change. ^

Historical Notes

Air pollution reached its worst levels in Los Angeles during the 1940s and 1950s. Millions of people driving millions of cars plus temperature inversion provided Los Angeles with a near perfect environment for the production and containment of photochemical smog.

Historical Notes

On August 22, 1964, Los Angeles basin was recognized as having the worst ozone problem of any city in the U.S.*

Historical Notes

Photo caption for the above photo reads: “SMOGGY DAY-It was smoggy yesterday as indicated by this photograph made from Figueroa St. looking east on 6th St. But it wasn't nearly as bad as the Air Pollution Control District predicted.”

Historical Notes

It wasn’t until 1975 that the U.S. required new cars to have catalytic converters, the key piece of technology that allowed everything to change.

The introduction of catalytic converters drastically reduced tailpipe emission pollutants. Hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions from new cars plummeted from an average of 14 grams per mile in 1965 to just 3 grams per mile by 1975.

This dramatic reduction in vehicle emissions was a major factor in the gradual improvement of air quality in the LA basin over subsequent decades.

Historical Notes

In the 1970s and 1980s formal Smog Alerts were issued asking people to reduce driving.  Schools were also affected by Smog Alerts.  If the alert was bad enough, recess was cancelled and children were kept inside to play board games.  Unfortunately, classrooms didn’t have air conditioning or filters so being inside wasn’t much better than being outside.

Smog Alerts came in three stages:  Stage 1 – Unhealthy; Stage 2 – Very Unhealthy; Stage 3 – Hazardous

Historical Notes

In 1984, The California Smog Check program went into effect to identify vehicles in need of maintenance and to assure the effectiveness of their emissions-control systems.*

Historical Notes

In 1974, the nation’s last recorded Stage Three smog alert occured in Upland (east of Los Angeles). Ozone levels hit .51 parts per million. Gov. Ronald Reagan urged residents to “limit all but absolutely necessary auto travel” and recommended that people drive slower to reduce emissions.*

Historical Notes

In 1987, AQMD established a landmark rideshare program requiring companies employing at least 100 people to offer incentives to workers to carpool or use public transit. Employers complained that it shouldn’t be their job to change workers’ driving behavior, and the project went away in a few years.*#

Historical Notes

Most of smog found in Los Angeles is a type of air pollution derived from vehicular emission from internal combustion engines and industrial fumes that react in the atmosphere with sunlight to form secondary pollutants that also combine with the primary emissions to form photochemical smog.

Historical Notes

In 1993, bowing to pressure to do its part to revive the sluggish economy, the AQMD approved a program that allowed major polluters to trade emission credits among themselves. The program, dubbed RECLAIM, proved ineffective and fed the agency’s soft-on-the-bad-guys reputation that continues to this day.

Some 58 bills were introduced in Sacramento that would exert control over the AQMD and state Air Resources Board and make them more business-friendly. *

Historical Notes

IIn 1996, the ‘Big Seven’ automakers committed to make zero-emissions vehicles, and General Motors rolled out the EV-1.

Historical Notes

In 2003, automakers went to court and effectively eliminate the state’s zero-emissions vehicle standards.

Historical Notes

The year 2000 saw a milestone in that no Stage One smog alerts were issued for that year, compared to 42 days in 1990, when people with respiratory problems were urged to stay indoors.

Historical Notes

Although a pristine view of the downtown skyline may still elude Angelenos on most days, air pollution rarely cripples the city in present times as it did in the mid-twentieth century. Severe smog has largely abated.  This was all due to citizen activism, scientific advances, and landmark environmental legislation that allowed the EPA to regulate air pollutants.

Historical Notes

In the 1970s and '80s, the Los Angeles region often saw more than 200 bad-air days a year, with ozone levels exceeding 300 parts per billion on the smoggiest summer days. Peak ozone concentrations have dropped to about a third of that, even as the region’s population has grown and the number of vehicle miles traveled has doubled.

The success of emissions standards that began more than four decades ago, especially The Clean Air Acts of 1970 and 1977, has slashed air pollution in Southern California by 70% since 1970.

Historical Notes

Over the past several decades, California officials set groundbreaking standards that phased out many inefficient car and truck engines and some of the dirtiest fuels for everything from jet skis and lawnmowers to school buses and heavy-duty trucks. Local smog-fighters in the Los Angeles basin forced cleanup of oil refineries, manufacturing plants, and consumer products such as paints and solvents. Other local and state programs offered incentives for replacing old trucks and buses.

The result: Some of the most problematic pollutants-smog-forming nitrogen dioxide and fine particles created by diesel-engine exhaust and other fossil fuels-declined in the worst neighborhoods by up to 50 percent in 20 years.^*

Much more can still be done.

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