NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Tighter anti-smog standards could add as many as 23 parishes to the five now failing to meet federal pollution limits, the state Department of Environmental Quality said Wednesday.
However, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which announced last year that it might reduce the amount of ozone allowed in the air from 80 parts per billion to 70 or 75, put off a news conference scheduled Wednesday on whether it will do so.
"We'll see what happens," DEQ spokesman Rodney Mallett said.
He said he was told Tuesday that 75 parts per billion was more likely than 70 — and on Wednesday learned that a figure as high as 79 might be possible.
East Baton Rouge Parish and four nearby parishes — West Baton Rouge, Livingston, Ascension and Iberville — don't meet current standards. Fifteen other parishes have come into compliance with those standards since 1978.
A limit of 75 ppb would put most of them out of compliance again, adding several more for a total of 21. Ouachita and Union parishes would pass at 75 parts per billion, but not at 70, Mallett said.
Most of southeast Louisiana currently has ozone levels at or above 75 parts per billion. So do Lafourche and Terrebonne, Lafayette and St. Martin, Calcasieu and Cameron, and Caddo, Bossier and DeSoto parishes, according to DEQ.
From Pointe Coupee Parish east and south, the only parishes which would pass a 75 ppb standard would be Washington, Tangipahoa, Assumption, St. Mary, and Iberia.
Mallett said his staff was working on a list of parishes which would meet and fail a 79 ppb standard.
Baton Rouge area industries currently have stricter air pollution limits than those in the rest of the state. And lower ozone limits could force gas stations in the area to sell cleaner — and more expensive — gasoline.
Businesses and governments in that area sued to keep from having to switch to reformulated gas. Mallett said the EPA agreed in 2004 to consider whether state analysts were correct in predicting that, because the five-parish area is so small, drivers would be likely to drive to nearby parishes for less expensive gas, adding to air pollution rather than reducing it.
That might change if five Baton Rouge-area parishes, St. James Parish, and the metro New Orleans area were added to those violating new standards.
"I'm sure that is something the EPA will look at before requiring it or letting any out of using it," Mallett said.
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