DATE: Wednesday, June 18, 1997              TAG: 9706180557

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   76 lines

EPA GIVES OK ON SMOG LEVELS IN HAMPTON ROADS - FOR NOW

Ending years of scientific debate and political posturing, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared Tuesday that the air above Hampton Roads no longer contains unsafe amounts of smog.

This clean-air designation, to take effect in 10 days, removes a big hurdle that threatened to delay the arrival of 175 fighter jets - and their associated millions of dollars' worth of economic windfall - at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach.

It also lifts tough, expensive limits on businesses and industries that spew chemical emissions that can cause smog, and removes the threat of possible mandatory tailpipe inspections on cars and trucks.

``We're there; we're in attainment,'' said a delighted Art Collins, executive director of the Hampton Planning District Commission, which has lobbied the state and federal governments for a clean-air bill of health for nearly three years.

Technically known as ground ozone, smog stems mostly from power plants, cars, trucks and manufacturing plants that burn fossil fuels such as coal and oil.

Smog occurs most often during hot summer months and is a known respiratory hazard that can scar lung tissue. The elderly and young children are particularly susceptible to its effects.

Hampton Roads, however, has not experienced an hour of excessive smog since 1993 - proof, local officials have argued, that the region is safe.

By declaring Hampton Roads in full compliance with the national Clean Air Act, the EPA rejected a last-minute plea by North Carolina to stall a local smog-free designation.

Business and political leaders south of the state line had hoped their objection would help their cause in getting at least some of the F/A-18 Hornets moved to Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, N.C.

Cherry Point was supposed to receive some of the planes from Cecil Field near Jacksonville, Fla., under a 1993 plan approved by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

But BRAC decided two years later to relocate all the planes, their crews and families to Oceana. North Carolina has been protesting ever since.

The happy days in Virginia and Hampton Roads may be short-lived, however. The EPA is preparing to enact new standards July 16 for ground ozone and soot that would effectively put the region back on a list of smog-troubled cities.

Local government, business and energy lobbyists are working overtime in Washington to delay or overturn the proposed new regulations, which the Clinton administration announced this spring.

Carol M. Browner, the EPA's administrator, argued that tougher rules are needed to curb a growing number of asthma and other respiratory-ailment cases across the country. The trend is caused, in part, by air pollution, Browner has said.

Collins and other local officials have countered that the standards, if adopted, would cause much of the mid-Atlantic to flunk this new clean-air test.

The remedies, officials have said, could include limits on weekday commuting and unprecedented restrictions on what businesses could burn to make energy.

Frank Daniel, regional director for the state Department of Environmental Quality, told a recent conference of business leaders, academics and government leaders that the new standards would have dramatic impacts on economic development - all for little environmental gain.

In a cost-benefit analysis, the new standard - from .12 parts per million of ground ozone to .08 ppm - would not be worth the economic impact on area businesses, Daniel and others have said. However, health groups such as the American Lung Association have said the crackdown, while seemingly miniscule on paper, would produce significant gains in the health of residents who live in cities with high smog levels. ILLUSTRATION: WHAT IT DOES

Squelches a North Carolina bid to delay the arrival of 175

fighter jets at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach.

Lifts tough limits on businesses and industries whose chemical

emissions can cause smog.

Removes the threat of tailpipe inspections on cars and trucks. KEYWORDS: ENVIRONMENT SMOG

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