A-C gets proactive about air pollution

There is little question Athens-Clarke County's air quality will violate new federal air-quality standards next year.

The question is how quickly potentially onerous restrictions on car emissions, road-building and economic development might be lifted.

Athens' air is not getting worse - in fact, it may be improving - but federal restrictions on harmful pollutants that cause smog are getting tighter. The state Environmental Protection Division already has designated the city for nonattainment, or not meeting the new standards, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency likely will make it official next year.

"We're hoping we'll get better, and hoping they go light on us," Athens-Clarke Environmental Coordinator Dick Field said.

If recent trends continue, Clarke County could be removed from the nonattainment list before 2013, when a plan to cut air pollution locally kicks in. After violating the new smog standard on eight days in 2007 and six days in 2008, the county has not violated it once so far this summer, Field said. Another smog-free summer, and Athens could come off the list, he said.

Next month, Mayor Heidi Davison hopes to speed up the process by appointing a task force of government, industry and environmental leaders who will create a plan to get Clarke County out of nonattainment as quickly as possible.

"We show what we've been doing, we show what we're planning on doing, and we turn that into an early action plan that might influence what the EPA makes us do," Davison said.

County officials are touting more than a dozen programs they say are reducing air pollution, however marginally. They include an outdoor burning ban; zoning that encourages centralized growth; plans to expand public transit, sidewalks and bicycle lanes; buying hybrid cars for c

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