3 Utilities Get Postponement on Smog Monitors

The municipal power companies owned by the cities of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena won a temporary reprieve Tuesday from a rule that would have required them to install monitors to measure the amount of nitrogen oxides their steam boilers pump into the atmosphere.

An attorney for the three utilities argued before a South Coast Air Quality Management District hearing panel that the agency had not given them enough time to install the measuring devices before the Jan. 1 deadline. The rule requiring the devices, which would cost each of the utilities between $300,000 and $400,000 to install, was approved by the AQMD’s board of directors in August.

The utilities contend that they were not told of the deadline for installation of the monitors until October.

The hearing panel, which is independent of the AQMD, granted the utilities an interim variance that will last until Jan. 16. On that date the hearing panel will review the utilities’ arguments to postpone the requirement until they can install the devices.

AQMD spokesman Dave Rutherford said the utilities have indicated that the monitors could be installed by March, 1991.

Had the hearing panel not granted the request for a temporary variance, the utilities could have been subjected to a minimum penalty of $1,000 per day, according to attorney Steven A. Broiles, who represented all three utilities. The penalties could go up to as much as $25,000 a day if the utilities were found to have willfully violated the rule.

The first stage of the AQMD’s massive, 20-year plan for cleaning up the air in the Los Angeles Basin requires utilities to reduce emissions by 1991 to one-quarter pound of nitrogen oxides per megawatt hour of power produced. By the end of this month the utilities are required to achieve the first step toward that goal by reducing their emissions of nitrogen oxides, a major element in air pollution, to a maximum of 1.6 pounds per megawatt hour.

Rutherford said the AQMD measures the utilities’ compliance with the rules through occasional testing. The monitoring devices would provide a continuous check on the emissions.

Broiles said the utilities are not required to submit a plan for how to achieve the desired reduction in emissions until July, 1991.

Electric power plants produce about 16% of the nitrogen oxides emitted by stationary sources in the Los Angeles Basin. In 1985, the three utilities combined produced 1,040 tons of nitrogen oxides. By contrast, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power emitted 2,329 tons of the pollutants.