By Ping Ho Guest Commentary
I AM NOT SURPRISED THAT THE BILL was killed, given the demands on our state funds these days.
Far from being disappointed, however, I am encouraged by the fact that AB 700 made it much farther in the process than its predecessor, AB 2501. The buzz around AB 700 demonstrated that aircraft emissions from Santa Monica Airport are a legitimate concern.
As I sat in my home office smelling jet fumes nearly all day for the last several days, it occurred to me that there is nothing stopping the City of Santa Monica from taking a leadership role in coalescing a task force of scientists, elected officials, community members, and users to study the problem and apply for a research grant. In fact, this is an opportune moment for the City to play the role of actor, rather than reactor. The City’s own Environmental Task Force could assist in advising on such grant application opportunities, as it has done (unheeded) in the past. Perhaps funding could be obtained from private industry with a stake in the matter (companies that make inhalers? or air filters?).
The opportunity for the City to collaborate on research in this area is greatly enhanced by the findings of the recent study of ultrafine particles emanating from aircraft at Los Angeles International Airport, recently completed by Dr. John Froines of UCLA.
The study found that the forcefulness of aircraft exhaust sends its hazardous pollutants much farther into the community than other sources, which tend to dissipate easily in the wind. The study’s findings inform us of what substances are worth measuring, in what units of time they should be measured, where they should be measured, and how they should be measured.
As fate would have it, my son has decided to learn to fly recreational airplanes. The other day, as I stood on the viewing deck by the airport administration to watch him, I was aware that in the hour that I stood there, the only times that I smelled fumes were when an old propeller plane literally pulled up right beside me and when jets were idling on the opposite side of the tarmac – regardless of whether they were downwind OR upwind. The pollution from jets disseminates broadly and quickly. A jet emissions researcher told me that idling and taxiing contributes 1/3 of all pollution from jets. In our 2002 research, my son and I found that fumes from aircraft arriving or departing from Santa Monica Airport were associated with peaks in ultra-fine particles measured in the community. The highest levels of fumes were generated by jet aircraft idling and taxiing.
The City has at its disposal a veritable brain trust of scientific talent that happens to live in (or has lived in) the community surrounding the airport. Also, Bill Piazza, the scientist who conducted a mathematical modeling study of emissions emanating from Santa Monica Airport in 1999, is willing to assist with a follow-up study. Mr. Piazza, of the Los Angeles Unified School District Office of Environmental Health and Safety, predicted excess cancer risk in areas around the airport, with roughly half the number of jet operations that are currently taking place.
Back in 2002, it was thought that aircraft emissions could not be measured in the community. We now know otherwise. A lot of progress has been made in five years, and I believe that we will see far more progress in upcoming years. A continued dialogue with scientists is important because we can inspire them to help us, as we have done before.
Based on transcripts of a series of scientific working group meetings sponsored by Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution, it seems we could benefit from a smaller, repeated study of vulnerable individuals exposed to emissions from Santa Monica Airport followed over a shorter period of time … we could benefit from data gathered on odors and idling and taxiing time in order to create a model of emissions distribution and odor-threshold concentrations, and then manipulate the variables to see how they change the community’s exposure to emissions… we could benefit from a massive study of individuals chronically exposed to ultrafine particles to establish the relationship between dose and response, which we could extrapolate to our situation. If we jump on it now, we may have some answers by 2015.
Finally, what we as a community can begin to do now is create a more effective means of data gathering, so that when the time comes to do a study, we will be poised and ready.
I, for one, am not giving up.
Ping Ho is a Santa Monica Resident and sits on the Friends of Sunset Park Airport Committee.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 11, 2007. Read the original PDF.