California smothers in worst smog in years

Clinics report rise in respiratory illnesses

LOS ANGELES — Southern California is experiencing its worst smog in years this summer as heat and stagnant weather increase the number of bad air days and drive up ozone pollution to levels not seen since 2009.

Where pollution is worst, in the Inland Empire region, hospitals and asthma clinics are reporting increases in patients seeking treatment for respiratory illness, their breathing difficulties exacerbated by the persistent heat and pollution.

Ozone, the lung-searing gas in smog that triggers asthma and other health problems, has exceeded federal standards on 91 days this year compared with 67 days over the same period last year, according to South Coast Air Quality Management District data through Monday.

In June, only four days had healthy air across the South Coast basin, which spans Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. In July, ozone levels violated federal health standards every day except July 31.

And it’s not getting any better. Every day of August has been over the federal limit of 70 parts per billion.

Peak concentrations of ozone have also jumped. The region recorded its highest ozone reading since 2009, when the pollutant spiked to 164 parts per billion in the late afternoon on July 22 at the Crestline monitoring station in the San Bernardino Mountains.

“We’ve had a lot of high days, we’ve had high peaks, and we’re about halfway through the ozone season,” said Philip Fine, deputy executive officer for the South Coast air district.

Fine blamed the increase in smog on abnormally hot, stagnant weather, including some of the strongest, most persistent pollution-trapping inversion layers in years. It’s unlikely that increased emissions are to blame, he said, because of a wide variety of regulations that mandate increasingly cleaner cars, trucks and other vehicles.

Smoke from recent wildfires has also degraded air quality.

The health consequences of more-polluted air were obvious to patients at an asthma and allergy clinic in Upland earlier this week.

Retired librarian Caroline Whipple said it has been so smoggy lately she has been forced to stay inside her retirement community in Claremont.

“Otherwise, my throat gets all messed up, and I have a hard time breathing,” she said.

Garry Attridge, 54, an architect from Rancho Cucamonga, has suffered from a sore, itchy throat and wheezing, and he has found himself reaching for his asthma inhaler more frequently in recent months. He has been giving more breaks to the youth soccer team he coaches.

On the smoggiest days, he reschedules their practices to the evening when air quality is better.

“It’s disgusting,” Attridge said. “The air is so thick you can almost taste it. You can’t see the mountains. And it certainly affects the way they play because they can’t breathe.”

This recent surge in smog is the latest indication that progress in the fight to clean ozone pollution is faltering after decades of improving air quality across Southern California.

A lack of air-cleansing storms during the drought worsened ozone and fine-particle pollution across the state, though even those smog levels remained far below what plagued the Los Angeles region in the 1970s and ’80s.

Ozone is especially difficult to control because the corrosive gas is not emitted directly but formed through photochemical reactions when emissions from cars, trucks, oil refineries and an array of other sources cook in the heat and sunlight.

Southern California has the nation’s worst smog and fails to meet a series of federal ozone standards going back to 1979.

Curbing ozone to current federal limits will require regulators to make massive emissions reductions over the next two decades. Climate change will complicate those efforts by increasing the number of extremely hot days that are prime for ozone formation.

The step backward on smog comes as the South Coast air quality board has been under scrutiny since being taken over by a new majority pursuing a more industry-friendly approach to pollution regulation.

Environmentalists say the recent dive in air quality underscores the need for more aggressive regulations.

“Rather than pointing the finger at the weather, the air board should be using all of the tools they have available to reduce emissions,” said Evan Gillespie of the Sierra Club.

Meanwhile, hospitals and clinics in the Inland Empire say poor air quality appears to be driving more people to seek medical treatment.

In June and July, Dignity Health Community Hospital of San Bernardino saw a 10 percent to 15 percent increase in emergency-room admissions over the previous year, including many children with asthma and elderly patients with chronic illnesses that are worsened by smog.

“This should be one of the slowest times of the year for us, and that has not been the case,” said Cameron Nouri, medical director of the hospital’s emergency department.

Loma Linda University Medical Center has seen an increase in children with asthma symptoms. The hospital treats many people with chronic lung disorders who go to the emergency room in distress “because breathing is so difficult in heat or dirty air,” said Lori Scott, who directs the department of respiratory care.

Such observations are consistent with health studies that have shown an increase in emergency-room visits, hospital admissions and missed school days when ozone pollution is high. Ozone also contributes to premature deaths from cardiovascular disease and other chronic illnesses.

RICK LOOMIS/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS Tina Davoodi, 15, and her father, Rahman Davoodi, 51, sit on the rocks with an overlook of Los Angeles while on a hike near the Griffith Observatory in May. The smog has grown worse as the region suffers its worst summer for air quality in seven years.