(00:00:05) And welcome to midday. I'm Mike Mulcahy sitting in for Gary eichten, California. Governor Gray Davis has signed legislation that will reduce Greenhouse emissions coming from all Passenger cars sold in that state the move could have an impact here in Minnesota by the end of the decade because one of every ten cars sold in the country is sold in California. That means the Auto industry would probably have to change Nationwide to abide by the new California law, but automakers are saying they'll fight that law in federal court Minnesota. Meanwhile is having its own problems with their quality twice already this summer the Minnesota Pollution Control agency has issued air pollution alerts because of ozone and other things in the air this comes after for ozone alerts Last Summer the worst record in nearly two decades if the alerts keep happening the federal government could step into Force things like mandatory vehicle emissions testing reformulated. Celine and new regulations on businesses today on. Midday we're going to talk about what's happening to air quality in the Twin Cities what's behind the pollution alerts and what if anything can we do to avoid air pollution Our Guest is David Thornton. He served as the air quality manager at the mpca for many years and is now manager of policy and planning and as always you can join our conversation by giving us a call at six five. One two, two seven six thousand. If you're in the Twin Cities 6512276 thousand outside the Twin Cities call us toll-free 1-800 to for to 2828. That number is 1-800-222-8477. Now what is happening when these pollution alerts are called particularly for ozone. (00:01:50) Well, we've been participating in a new project over the last two years, which is one of the reasons why you're hearing more about this. And that's involved in forecasting air pollution levels for the the days ahead. We have a consultant out in California that's been recommended by EPA that's helping us do that. They take a look at the weather situation what the weather is forecast to to to change to over the next few days and then compare looking at the actual air pollution levels. They give us some information about whether they think that the air pollution levels will exceed standards are get above levels that are unhealthy for certain types of people and activities and we've been using that information over the last two years to help us alert people to whether or not the air quality is beginning to deteriorate the situation that we've had last year particularly was ozone pollution at something that we haven't had problems with in the Twin Cities many other cities, as you know have had problems with ozone. This is not the ozone way up in the atmosphere that protects us from Solar radiation but what some people call smog which is a very prevalent in most large urban areas and in the United (00:03:08) States and is it mostly from automobiles (00:03:12) It's a combination of a number of sources Ozone is formed when two different kinds of pollutants react up in the atmosphere in the presence of sunlight and heat nitrogen oxide emissions nitrogen oxides are emitted from any process any combustion process. So automobiles diesel trucks your home furnace as well as power plants anything that that burns a fuel emits nitrogen oxide emissions and that reacts with another type of compound that it's basically organic chemicals that the Environmental Protection Agency lumps into one category called volatile organic compounds and they come In addition to from Automobiles and refueling and that sort of thing they come from a lot of different kinds of sources. In fact in Minnesota the largest group of sources that emit those volatile organic compounds are small businesses that use chemicals in one way or another like a print shops or dry cleaners and that sort (00:04:21) of thing and you see that on a can of paint right? It lists the VLC (00:04:24) content. Exactly. Anyway, these pollutants mix up in the atmosphere and when it gets really hot, and there's a lot of sunshine present they react to form ozone and that's what that's what we've been dealing with here. (00:04:37) And that's that's why these things are usually called on those hot sticky steamy (00:04:42) days in part. There's also another component here that's interesting on many of those days. Some of our ozone is blown into the state from states to the south and west of us. We're not really sure how much we make ourselves or how much is actually transported in but on those hot sticky days that hot air and that sticky moisture came from the south of us and as it blew across Missouri are Oklahoma and those other states the south of us gets picked up some pollution and that is contributing to it as (00:05:20) well. And one of the days this summer it was a result of smoke from some of the forest fires, (00:05:26) right? That's a different type of problem. There is a new standard that that we're dealing with at the federal level for fine particulate matter and these are fine particles that are so small. You can't see them. They are also formed in the atmosphere from emissions from power plants and other types of sources, but a couple of days this year we've had levels where the find It's were unhealthy as well. And at least one of those days we believe it was forest. Fire smoke probably coming in from Canada. We haven't been able to analyze the other day as carefully (00:06:03) and whether it's always on the or the particulate matter. This has an impact on people's Health right to breathe these (00:06:11) things. It does the levels that we've had here in the Twin Cities are certainly not as high as they are in certain places like Chicago even but Houston Atlanta or Los Angeles, but they have gotten over a level that has been set by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency that's called unhealthy for sensitive individuals and sensitive individuals are described as children elderly and people with pre-existing conditions that have pre-existing respiratory or heart ailments or heart conditions and the the type of warning that we are Issuing it for those types of people on those days is that they simply be aware of the fact that either the air pollution levels have exceeded a level that may cause some harm or that their forecast to exceed a level that may cause some harm and that we'd ask people to consider the outdoor air pollution as they decide what they're going to do that day generally these episodes occur later in the day as the pollution builds up during the day and the sun Cooks the pollutants in the atmosphere. So it's generally being careful about what you're doing in the late afternoon and early evening (00:07:32) David Thornton is our guest during this hour of. Midday. He is the manager of policy and planning at the Minnesota Pollution Control agency has a long background in the air quality issues. And we invite you to join our conversation. If you have questions or comments about the the air we breathe give us a call at six five one two, two seven six five. Thousand in the Twin Cities 6512276 thousand if you're outside the Twin Cities call us toll-free 1-800 to four two two eight two eight one eight hundred 242, 2828 and David Thornton up until a couple of years ago. The Twin Cities had mandatory emissions testing for cars. Would that have prevented some of these ozone problems or have helped prevent it (00:08:22) probably not and if it did if it would have only a very little that testing program was in place to deal with yet a different air pollutant carbon monoxide. And so the testing requirements were geared primarily towards reducing carbon monoxide emissions it it helped there quite a bit. We became in compliance with the carbon monoxide standard and we discovered that we could stay there. Are without having the testing program and it was also fairly unpopular with people with a lot of people and we felt that it would be safe to get rid of the program. There are vehicle testing programs in other cities that are more geared towards dealing with ozone pollutants. And I don't think we would get into a situation here where we would need to do that ourselves because the whole testing industry that deals with automobile emissions is changing. We have computers controlling everything on a car emissions from cars or lower and lower now. It's primarily older cars that are what you might consider to be a beater that are the the ones that are of concern and at least emitting greater than they really should are allowed (00:09:43) to I might consider that a fine car though. You don't know you haven't seen what I (00:09:48) drive. So I think Testing programs like that are going to be less of a tool to try to deal with ozone pollution in the future. Okay. (00:09:58) Well, let's take some callers riches on the line from Oakdale Rich Europe first here on midday today. Well, thank you for taking my call. Say the reason I'm calling you David is I understand that our ozone occurs naturally and as a byproduct of lightning, is that church? Is there any truth to that (00:10:17) rich? I think that that's true there is Ozone formed when lightning strikes nitrogen oxide emissions are nitrogen oxide is formed when lightning strikes as well and there is a certain amount of ozone in the atmosphere that is considered background that is due to natural causes for example trees certain types of trees omit those volatile organic compounds that I was talking about earlier. So in North America scientists generally believed that around 30 to 40% of the ozone. That's present is natural ozone. And what we're concerned about is that which is above that and causes levels to rise in urban areas that get to the point where it's not healthy to breathe it (00:11:03) and I know that some of the recommendations when these alerts have been called are that you don't fill up your gas tank until maybe after Sundown. You don't run the lawnmower. Don't light your charcoal grill. What how does doing those things cut down on ozone or prevent ozone from being made? (00:11:24) Well, you'd be surprised how dirty small engines are small two-stroke engines emit enormous amounts of pollutants mowing your yard. Mm. It's more pollution than driving your car in rush hour for a week back and forth to work. It's incredible the amount of emissions that you get from Small Engines like a lawn mower or a weed eater other kinds of yard tools or Landscaping. Devices fueling your car when you put the gasoline in the tank. There's Vapors in the tank that are there that get pushed out by the volume of liquid gasoline going in and that can create a significant emission amount. So yeah, there are a few things that you can do on these days when we make these announcements that would make a difference if everybody it wouldn't make a difference if one or two people that it but if a lot of people did it which we're hoping through getting some more awareness of this issue out more people will participate can make a difference and and what we're trying to do here is avoid getting into a situation where the federal government is going to step in and try to regulate things here in Minnesota because of the ozone levels. We want to we want to reduce the problem before that happens. (00:12:43) All right. Well, let's take another caller Phil is on the line from Detroit Lakes. I feel go ahead please. Thank you for taking my call. Of the things that the parent is the diesel engines must be gross polluters. I've been the truck business and I look at this technology from the 40s. We're still using and the way they run the power and through all these gearboxes and that type of thing which is positively our cake. I just wanted to know in October. Is there a new rule coming out on diesel engine emissions and what type of emissions disease so engines actually put out and I'll take my listen on the radio and all thank you (00:13:18) so much. Thank you Phil. You're right. Diesel engines can be extremely dirty and emit quite a bit of pollution. They emit the particles that you can see the black smoke soot and that's largely unburned fuel our fuel that's been converted to buy products. Some people call that diesel particulate and they're quite a bit of studies that connect breathing Diesel particulates with cancer incidents. So there's some significant concern there. There are new regulations coming out EPA has new fuel standards for diesel fuel which will help reduce the emissions from diesel engines. There are new heavy duty engine standards which are going to again reduce the emissions from diesel engines, but those primarily apply to the fuel will apply to all engines but the the new emission standards are only apply to new trucks and new diesel equipment and one of the concerns that a lot of people have around the country is that for a lot of good reasons trucks and diesel engines seem to last for a very long time. So it's going to take a while before a new engine impacts the overall emissions of the fleet. So that's something that we're continuing to look at. (00:14:41) Okay, let's go right back to the phones and Kathy is on the line for Morris. Hello. Mr. Thornton. I live in Western Minnesota, and I have noticed in recent. Was that the dakotans have built South Dakota has built a number of I guess their power plants, but they're massive polluting plants just east of I29 but they're close to the Minnesota border. And with the prevailing Western wins, the pollution blows right across the border into Minnesota and there really are no other major sources of air pollution that are so obvious right here. And you know, when I drive across this beautiful green Minnesota farm land, here's this ugly black Trail direct from South Dakota of pollution that's coming into our state and I would think that it would be I mean if there are ways to measure air pollution that comes in its there ought to be a way to measure that because it's so very obviously coming from these Dakota plants, and I would hope that maybe we could make them liable for the damage they're doing and I'll hang up and listen. Thank (00:15:44) you. Thanks for the call. We are working currently with a number of other states every state in the country is working on this actually looking at something that I referred to earlier, which is transported pollution pollution that blows into one state and may be causing or contributing to a problem that is actually admitted maybe several states away and there's a national effort to to look at this. It's called Regional air quality planning and we happen to be working with the states that are primarily to the south of us. But we're also going to be involved with the Dakotas and Wisconsin as well because some of our pollution is probably blowing into Wisconsin and Michigan and even Canada because we know that pollution at least forest fire smoke blows down from Canada and presumably sometimes our emissions blow up into Canada. So we're looking at studying the problem more holistically looking at sources many states away using computers. To help us model the transport of these pollutants and then ultimately we're going to have to develop a plan to address the missions. (00:16:56) You mentioned that the emissions from cars from automobiles are actually getting cleaner or cars are emitting less. I should say because of Technology. What about these big power plants and Industrial sites, are they cleaner quote-unquote than they used to be or the about the same or Worse (00:17:18) first? Let me clear up something about cars. Okay, an individual car is cleaner today, but we have many more of them and they're driving many more miles a year and at least here in the Twin Cities as you probably are aware. They're involved in congested traffic more often. So the total emissions from automobiles is if it's not already on the way back up its going to start going back up again in the future because of the the just the sheer Number the amount of gasoline that's burned as far as power plants are concerned in factories new power plants and new factories are relatively clean. It's the older power plants and older factories that are concerned. There is a move afoot nationally to try to address that it's gotten very political there President Bush has his plan the Democrats have their plan. Everybody seems to be fighting about it right now. I don't think anything will happen this year. But within the next couple of years, hopefully, they'll be some national legislation that will get at this this problem of older plants that essentially have been the term that's used as grandfathered in under the Clean Air Act locally. Our largest utility Xcel Energy has announced intentions to address the emissions from three of Our largest and oldest plants here in the Twin Cities and that's a very good thing and we're going to be working with them to see if we can't make sure that that happens (00:18:55) and that would be converting from coal to natural (00:18:57) gas at one of the plants. They're going to what they proposed is to install some new state-of-the-art pollution control equipment at two of the plants. They've talked about they're talking about is converting from burning coal to natural gas and natural gas is while still result in emissions. It's far cleaner and is actually more (00:19:20) efficient. Hmm. All right, let's take another caller Beth is on the line from Elk River. Hello Beth. Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I'm a report a couple weeks ago from mcps website that listed all the lakes and rivers and streams that aren't on some sort of a list that comes out every four years where the water has reached unacceptable levels for either eating the fish or swimming and I know Set in the last four years there was 500 and some new lakes rivers and streams that have been added to this and one of the causes was the levels of mercury and from what I understand that does that come from the air pollution? Is it coming when it rains it goes into the Lakes if you could explain the correlation there and I also have another question aside from the Excel plants. What other would be the like the I don't even know of what the the top coal burning facilities where they are or in Minnesota. I mean what other what other specific places are need to be addressed? Thank you. Thank you. (00:20:23) I'll take the second question first Beth. I mentioned three plants here in the Twin Cities XL also has a very large power plant facility in Sherburne County that burns call. There's actually two power plants there. Those are newer plants and have better pollution control equipment than the ones that I was referring to earlier. Aside from that the next largest plant in Minnesota is up near Grand Rapids and it's run by Minnesota power company, but we get a lot of our power from North Dakota. And while the plants aren't in Minnesota, the electricity comes to Minnesota. So you could look at those plants as being our emissions as well. As far as mercury is concerned Beth is right. Most of those water bodies that were added to that list of impaired water impaired Waters in the state where added because of mercury and the concern with Mercury is that it accumulates in fish and it's not a good idea for particularly children and pregnant women to eat. The fish that has too much mercury in it. We believe that most of it is coming from the air. We think that maybe 85 to 90% of it is coming from the air it gets in the air from the burning of coal at Plants it gets in the air from burning garbage at incinerators. Although incinerators have reduced their emissions of mercury by enormous amounts over the last 10 15 years. It also gets in the air because it's Mercury is widely used in products. It's less and less used in products, but it has been widely used in products that used to be in paint. It's been in batteries thermometers other instruments and when these products are used are there broken or they're discarded and properly the Mercury gets out and it Vapes volatilizes and gets into the atmosphere (00:22:24) and so is most of the Mercury and Minnesota Lakes coming from somewhere else in Minnesota, or is it coming from somewhere else in the country? Do we have any idea (00:22:32) that's a great question. And the way we usually answer that is that most of it is coming from somewhere other than this region Minnesota probably contributes a small amount of the Mercury that's accumulating. Our fish but some of our emissions blow east and north and contribute to the Mercury deposition that's occurring in other states to really deal with Mercury and get the concentrations and fish down to a level that would be safe for just about everybody there needs to be not just a national approach to dealing with Mercury but an international approach because a number of developing countries are just not as aware of mercury and are using it like the United States used it 20 or 30 years ago. (00:23:23) David Thornton is our guest during this hour of. Midday. He is the manager of policy and planning at the Minnesota Pollution Control agency and will take more of your calls in just a minute programming on Minnesota Public Radio is supported by eagle lab dedicated to (00:23:36) improving cleaning and sanitation standards for leading Hospitality Healthcare and food (00:23:41) processing customers worldwide on the web at Ecolab.com. They're very (00:23:46) 8 in farm fields and city parks few remember or mourn their passing (00:23:51) there were people who didn't have friends or family. So you know, who who cared? Maybe nobody know them and that's sad that just really sad some say it's time to acknowledge. The thousands of people who are forgotten part of American History hear their story in a new Minnesota Public Radio documentary over the hill to the poor house Monday on midday and all things considered. The program's you enjoy on Minnesota Public Radio are made possible by listeners like (00:24:20) you thank you (00:24:22) and William wilcoxen is joining us now with an update of the latest news William. Thanks Mike in the news Israel's latest action is drawing criticism from around the world European Arab and United Nations officials are all condemning the overnight missile strike in Gaza, which killed a wanted militant leader and 14 other Palestinians. Most of the victims were children, the eu's foreign policy. Chief says, he understands Israel's right to stop terrorists, but says this type of attack does not help peace efforts. The White House is calling the missile strike heavy-handed Israeli diplomats are defending their country a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington says his government regrets the loss of innocent civilian lives, but he calls the strike a Justified action of self-defense against dangerous terrorists. Nine weeks of sell-offs have led to some bargain stock prices but investors are still hesitant to buy stocks are mixed in midday trading despite good earnings reports from Gillette and Texas Instruments. The DOW Industrials gave up an early advance, but now are gaining again. They're up 88 points Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will bring its Global mission event to Minneapolis this week. The International Convention last came to Minnesota eight years ago when it was held in Moorhead. This year's program includes missionaries from Tanzania that Papua New Guinea dancers and Bishop Stephen Bowman of the denomination's Metropolitan New York, Synod IV stores are urging customers to check their freezers because the change seat possibly contaminated meat from ConAgra Beef Company Ivy's ground beef recall involves 13 stores in Minnesota. Minnesota Health officials say no State residents have been infected in the outbreak increasing cloudiness in Western Minnesota today as showers and thunderstorms possible by evening. Mostly sunny skies in the East high temperatures today in the 70s partly to mostly cloudy tonight with the chance of thunderstorms spreading across the state by morning lows tonight from 50 degrees in the arrowhead to the lower 60s in the southwest for the Twin Cities today. Mostly sunny high in the 70s right now in Worthington. It's partly cloudy and 66 in Duluth partly cloudy in 68. And in the Twin Cities partly cloudy 72 degrees. That's news from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm William wilcoxen. Thanks William, you're listening to midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Mike Mulcahy in today for Gary eichten. We're talking about air pollution and air quality in Minnesota today. Our guest is David Thornton. He is the manager of policy and planning at the Minnesota Pollution Control agency has a long background in air quality at the mpca and you can join our conversation. If you're listening in the Twin Cities. The number to call is six-five 12276 thousand 6512276 thousand if you're outside the Twin Cities use the toll free line one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight one eight hundred 242, 2828 and Greg is on the line now from st. Paul Greg. Go ahead. Yeah. My concern is that every summer, you know, we hear that warnings about the lawnmower and my charcoal grill. Meanwhile, the mpca is given permission to the Met Council to build a $200,000,000 incinerator on the Mississippi River in st. Paul to burn sewage sludge which contains the Mercury and we were just listening to him talk to us about the evils of mercury. Well right here in River City, you know, we're doing something they're doing a no other place around the country building an incinerator to get sewage sludge, you know, we were the Minnesota that has 25 million Acres of Farmland, we could take that sludge and use it in our farm product. You know, I don't know why we you know where on one hand the government wants to tell us it's evil to have that lawn mower on the other hand. It's okay for Ted Mondale to have his new incinerator. You know, it's a double message. Let's let David Thornton respond to (00:28:02) that. That's a good question. First of all. While sewage sludge might make a good fertilizer the Mercury that's in it probably would be volatilized from the fields. Once it was spread out. That's something that most people don't realize so taking sludge and spreading it on fields doesn't necessarily deal with the Mercury problem. The other thing is that the Metropolitan Waste Control Commission already has an incinerator down there and they're currently burning sludge and what this new facility will do is actually reduce the emissions from their overall plant and significantly reduce their Mercury emissions. They're putting some equipment on their just specifically to deal with Mercury. So in the long run, we're going to have a better situation as a result of (00:28:50) this why burn it at all. Why is there some other way to dispose of it that wouldn't put that mercury into the into the (00:28:56) air? Well, they did they did look very carefully at land application and it's just very expensive. There's so much sludge and Would have to haul it so far to be able to spread it out. And so if you forget the Mercury emissions from the farm Fields question, it's still just it was very expensive to deal with (00:29:17) it. What about the Hennepin County incinerator? How are the what are the emissions like out of (00:29:22) that? Well, I mentioned incinerators a while ago. They used to be a very large source of mercury that was back when products contained more products contain more Mercury than they do today and back when the emissions from incinerators were not very carefully regulated or at least as carefully regulated as they are now a couple of things with the Hennepin County incinerator and the others in the state is that the people who are managing the waist are doing a good job of getting products out before they burn them products that contain mercury. Another thing is that we have a number of products that That are actually banned in Minnesota that have contained Mercury, and nationally. There's been a real effort to try to get Mercury out of products. So the amount of mercury going into the incinerator is vastly reduced for a couple of reasons, and then on the stack, there's very good state-of-the-art controls and some things that they're doing specifically to reduce Mercury emissions. (00:30:29) All right. Let's return to the phones Jim is on the line from Egan gym. Go ahead, please good morning, and thank you for taking my call. I'd like to ask mr. Thornton relative to other forms of transportation. We've talked about the gasoline engine and the diesel engine diesel being quite dirty. user of energy in any case another distillate that's very close to diesel fuel is jet fuel and aircraft leaving our Twin Cities International Airport and arriving burn per aircraft per day hundreds of thousands of Pounds of jet fuel they depend primarily upon thrust thrust is is not geared through anything other than just the compressors on the engine, but it's all flowing into the atmosphere. How does that impact our pollution level of sin, especially when we have these pollution alerts and so (00:31:32) forth. Okay, that's another good question. And the best answer I can give you is that we don't know for sure particularly how the airport here in the Twin Cities effects ozone levels on those kinds of days in other cities. There is growing concern about the total emissions that come from the traffic the jet traffic that goes in and out of airports, and but I think that the concern is not as much Because of the local Air Pollution problems that causes as it is the fact that the emissions from Jets contribute to the regional burden of air pollution. We're going to be looking at this a little more carefully. We have a monitoring site that is located out right down between the two runways at the airport and it's only been there for a little while and we're just beginning to get data in from it and we're going to see if there if we can detect a local impact another source of pollution. I have to say from an airport is all the cars that drive out there and all the ground equipment that's used so it's not just the it's not just the Jets themselves. Okay, but in any (00:32:51) case you're monitoring it and your help to find the answer to that question. All right, interesting Joyce from Minneapolis. You're on next. Yes. Thank you for taking my call. I'm wondering is there any problem with pollution which comes from? Cars that stand and wait for people either with their air conditioners on to keep cool waiting for somebody to come out of a building to keep warm in the winter or to leave the motors running while they're getting gas. So I will take my answer off the air. Thank you (00:33:26) an idling car. That's another excellent question idling cars when you're getting gases is not a very good idea because it's potentially dangerous but a lot of people idle their cars it's to be more comfortable. I'm obviously but it's not as necessary as they might think you don't really need to have your car in the wintertime say up to operating temperature for it to run safely. Although when it's cold. It does emit more pollutants than when it's its operating at running speed and running conditions something that doesn't That you didn't mention but that is of particular concern to us is idling buses particularly school buses often. You would see around an elementary school in the afternoon. The bus is just lined up on the street near the school idling sometimes to keep the heater running but often just because that's the way they've done it and they're continuing to do it and it would be really nice to see more effort geared towards that because children are more at risk from these pollutants than healthy adults. (00:34:39) And those are mostly diesel engines to on the school (00:34:42) bus. Yes, that's correct. (00:34:43) Okay. All right. Let's take another caller Kelly is on the line from White Bear Township. Hello, Kelly. Hello. Good morning to both of you. My question relates to a lot of the other cities that we see with heavy pollution. Mainly Los Angeles Phoenix Las Vegas Atlanta Houston Denver a lot of cities. They either have mountains, which trap The ozone and other pollutants as well as cities that have very little rainfall to wash pollutants away or not much wind what type of effect does the terrain here in the Twin Cities contribute or our climate as well contribute to the ozone alert and other pollution problems, which we are having and at some point in the future. Are we going to have to be more like California or Chicago and Milwaukee where we have to regulate which type of lawn mowers or grills we buy or regulate household and Commercial emissions as well as vehicles that have those higher priced reformulated gasoline's. Okay couple of questions (00:35:46) there. Yeah, that's a good observation. I think the fact that we don't have a mountain range right next to us. Nor do we have another huge metropolitan area nearby those two things alone have probably contributed to the fact that we have for a large city. Probably some of the best air quality in the country regardless of the events that we've been having for the last few years. We're also located in the very northern part of the United States so it doesn't get as hot here as often. But I think what we've been seeing over the last few years is the fact that the number of days were certain types of weather conditions facilitate ozone formation have increased and that's basically really hot days when the wind is blowing from the south. And so if this is a trend that our weather is beginning to change and we are going to have more days like that then there is a real concern that in a few years. We may end up being in the situation that Milwaukee is in Are there are a number of federal regulations that might need to be imposed here. We're hoping that we can avoid that. There's a group of concerned individuals the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and the Minnesota Center for environmental. Advocacy. Advocacy are working together. They formed a committee that is trying to look at things that could be done by businesses and by individuals to try to prevent some of these high ozone days and you'll be hearing more about that later this summer. They're they're just beginning. I think they're going to call the the organization clean air Minnesota and it's sort of modeled after similar organizations around the country that adopt different practices such as maybe a business like 3M would agree that on a high pollution day. They're going to have their landscape contractor not cut grass with their lawn mowers or something and different things like (00:37:53) that now just listen. (00:37:55) You talk there. Do you see the (00:37:58) increasing number of these alerts based primarily upon the weather or is it is it because we have a growing population and and more cars on the road or (00:38:07) we're not really sure we're looking into that right now. This ozone has not been a problem for us. So we have not focused a lot of effort on understanding what our situation is here. We realize that we need to do that. Now we want to try to get a better handle on where our ozone is coming from what's causing it whether it's because of some increase in emissions locally or whether it has something to do with weather conditions that are changing. We just don't know the real key here is that we want to try to avoid getting into a situation where we are considered to be out of compliance with the standard by the Environmental Protection Agency. (00:38:50) And that's my next question. What does it take for the feds to step in and you know Bring the hammer down and here's what you have to do. Is it a certain number of (00:39:00) events or the the new standard that we're dealing with is something that's you average out over three different years. And so we have and it's it's designed to provide a little bit of flexibility and before an area is declared to be out of compliance at this point in time. We're just under the standard under this three or average and hopefully we can stay there. My guess is that if we are getting are in danger of having problems with compliance with the standard it's going to be in a couple of years out. Maybe maybe even more. All (00:39:42) right. Let's return to the phones because we have some folks standing by Elizabeth is calling from st. Paul. Hello Elizabeth. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I had a question and then I had a comment on my question. Is I understand that Gray Davis in California has managed to get through some increased standards for vehicles and emissions and I was wondering if the mpca would be willing to put forth a similar kind of thing in this state because we have I mean we have the right and we have the ability to propose things which are stricter than the federal standards if we want to number one and number two, somebody had called in and asked about Mercury earlier and I think it's important to note that there's not really really good equipment out there for capturing Mercury. I mean, I know that with that sells plan for the king plant where they're putting on best available control technology that at best they can get 20% of the Mercury and so that you know, so that a lot of it is still being released and you know, you're talking about hundreds of pounds a year. Only takes the 70th of a teaspoon in a 20 acre Lake to trigger a fish alert and pregnant women and small children eating that fish are are in danger, you know for things like brain damage which are really I mean that's huge if you can't eat more than 6 ounces of fish a week or whatever it is that the DNR the DNR recommends. Okay. Let's get some reaction to this any stricter standards in the works for Minnesota along the lines of what California did (00:41:27) yesterday. I'm going to need to study their legislation before I can answer that. I'm really not too familiar with it is what little I do know is that the the are regulatory board in California is going to have to develop some standards. So I don't think that the standards have been set yet. I think it's likely as you said earlier in the show that if California adopts tighter standards. To mostly they'll apply all over the country. I know the automobile industry has been making special cars for California for years and they don't like doing that. Right and a number of other states are trying to adopt the California Automobile (00:42:09) standards. Although the Auto industry says they'll fight this this new law and but I think it is one out of every ten cars sold is sold in California. So if they if they have to make a special car for California the thought is they would probably just make the same car for everywhere (00:42:24) right? There is a there is a diesel engine rule that California actually the federal government has adopted it but California adopted it and is going to require it to kick into place sooner than the federal government and we've joined a number of other states in developing a similar rule so that this diesel standard will apply in Minnesota before it's required by the federal government. So we have taken a look at one California Rule and and adopted it. We've joined, Texas and Florida. I think New York. I think when you add up all the states, it's 40% of the country. (00:43:00) And her other question was about the the effectiveness of these Mercury (00:43:06) scrubbers. That is a problem. There is no real good commercially available control technology for reducing Mercury emissions at power plants right now. There's a lot of money being spent around the country to try to identify a technology that will work and I am confident that something will be identified in the next year or two or three but at the moment there is no Silver Bullet for taking Mercury article. Hmm. Okay (00:43:40) another caller Mitch on the line for Minneapolis Mitch. Go ahead. In the summer, but 45 miles to the gallon doing 70 75 with air conditioning. What type of pollutants does diesel car? Is it more or less than a gas car and it is less. Why aren't we pushing more diesel power on vehicles? Okay, good question because diesel engines do they get to a pretty good mileage (00:44:18) and I don't know how I don't know the answer to your question. I really don't we don't have that many diesel engine automobiles in Minnesota at this point in time. So we've really not spent a lot of effort looking at that but it's a good question. I'll have to go back to the office and find (00:44:35) out. All right, let's get one more caller on Charles is calling from somewhere on the road. I think Charles you with us. Yes, ma'am. Go ahead. Yeah, there's a lot of diesel engines for tractor trailer trucks. 98 federal government put a standard for in for new diesel engines to come out which reduce the emissions for Knox and carbon dioxide and sulfur and stuff like that by 98% and the new thing that he was talking about the diesel engines to supposed to comply with a new federal standard for 2004 which is taken in effect for engines coming across now in 2003, which will reduce them for a 95 percent more than what they currently are. This thing. We're diesel engines are polluting is really a big Miss Nomar if you look at the studies, like knit so put out and other environmental agencies have put out diesel engines only produce one percent of the total pollution that's produced around in the state and in the United States and stuff power plants produce 26% cars produce a whole lot more other agencies produce that are polluting produced so much more than what diesel. Are these all engines are really quite clean nowadays. Okay, David reaction to that is diesel diesel engines getting a bad (00:46:01) rap here. Well, they're part of the problem and but so our cars it's not the fact that a particular truck may or may not be polluting a whole lot. It's the fact that there's just a whole bunch of them in there. They're burning a lot of diesel fuel and going a lot of miles that the the challenge with these types of pollution issues that we're talking about is that there is no one single big source that you can go control and solve the problem. It's all of us involved in the problem you and me when we were driving back and forth to work or to the store the truck that brought the goods to the store us when we were turning on our air conditioner home to stay cool when it's 90 degrees outside mowing our grass. We're all a part of the problem and we need to figure out Is that we can reduce our impact on the (00:46:55) environment and just in general. How does Minnesota we only have about 45 seconds here. But how does Minnesota Stack Up compared to other (00:47:03) states? I would say that air quality and Minnesota by virtue of our geographic location. Not near a mountain range not near other large cities on the northern border of the country has pretty good air quality, but there are some troubling signs that ozone in particular and maybe fine particulates are going to become more and more of a problem in the future and it's something that we need to watch carefully and try to prevent from happening in the (00:47:34) future. All right. Well, it's certainly something to keep an eye on and we want to thank you so much for coming by today David Thornton. He is the manager of policy and planning for the Minnesota Pollution Control agency and served as air quality manager at the mpca for many many years. Thanks so much again for coming by and thanks to everybody who called Victor. Comments and questions. We really appreciate it. Well the next fresh air we talked about the latest developments in the Middle East and the challenges of reporting on the conflict with New York Times Jerusalem. Bureau. Chief James Bennett. I'm Terry Gross join us for the next fresh air. fresh air tonight at eight o'clock here on Minnesota Public (00:48:14) Radio (00:48:25) And it's 5 minutes now before 12 noon time for Garrison Keillor and the writers Almanac.