Residents seem ready to help clean up air, survey says

By BILL DAWSON

June 26, 2000 Web posted at: 10:56 AM EDT (1456 GMT)

In this story: No-drive days? Concern about smog RELATED STORIES

HOUSTON, Texas (The Houston Chronicle) -- Houstonians have been warned for months that industry alone cannot solve the region's smog problem, and many local residents now seem ready to help.

That finding of the latest Houston Area Survey, an annual opinion poll, comes as state officials are finishing work on a new smog-reduction plan that they say will affect people and businesses alike.

"I think it says there's an enormous recognition of the importance of addressing the problem and a willingness by the public to do its part," said Stephen L. Klineberg, a Rice University sociology professor who directs the survey.

"They'll need to be convinced that industry is doing its part, but the public is more willing than would have been expected to entertain some quite draconian things."

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Different-size majorities of survey respondents said they support stricter tailpipe tests for private vehicles and favor adoption of a 55 mph speed limit as two ways to help reduce air pollution. Both measures are expected to be included, along with many others, in the state's new smog-cutting plan for Houston when it is formally proposed later this summer.

Another measure being studied by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, but generally considered unlikely to be adopted, is a decree that people cannot use personal vehicles on designated days.

Some officials have assumed that any such restriction on driving freedom would have virtually no public support. But when asked whether they would support a mandatory "no-drive day" each week -- "given the severity of air pollution problems in Houston " -- 36 percent of the survey respondents said they favor the idea.

Klineberg said the key to understanding such attitudes is what he considers "the incredibly high percentage" of respondents worried about air pollution's health impacts.

"How concerned are you about the effects of air pollution on your family's health?" they were asked.

Fifty-six percent said they were "very concerned," 31 percent were "somewhat concerned" and 13 percent "not very concerned."

This year's poll, conducted in February and March, was the first time that question was asked in the Houston Area Survey. Klineberg said he has no doubt that the response was influenced by recent news coverage of smog-related issues.

Houston earned national notoriety last year when it had the nation's worst smog record for the first time ever, as measured by one common yardstick.

By the end of 1999, this region had recorded the most days when ground-level ozone, smog's main ingredient, exceeded the national health standard at one or more sites. In all previous years, the Los Angeles area was in first place.

The TNRCC's new smog-reduction plan aims to slash regional emissions of nitrogen oxide, a key ozone-forming pollutant, by about 75 percent.

State officials say the biggest cut will come with a requirement for strict new controls on industrial plants, but even shuttering all those facilities wouldn't come close to achieving the 75 percent reduction needed. To make up the difference, they will propose an assortment of measures to reduce emissions from other businesses and from private cars and trucks.

One anticipated action is a lowering of highway speed limits -- a step the TNRCC has already taken to help reduce smog levels in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. The Houston measure being considered would lower speed limits to 55 mph.

In the Houston Area Survey, 51 percent of respondents said they favor "efforts to reduce air pollution in Houston by lowering all speed limits to 55 mph." Forty-seven percent opposed the idea.

By a larger margin -- 64 percent to 33 percent -- respondents said they favor "requiring more stringent emissions tests on all vehicles in Houston."

That response continues a trend of growing support for tailpipe tests in recent surveys -- to 70 percent last year, up from 38 percent in 1995 and 56 percent in 1997.

"It was a systematic increase," Klineberg said. "By 1997, people had found it was not such a terrible thing. It reflects people's experience and growing concern about the environment."

The 1995 poll was conducted shortly after an outcry by some local citizens helped prompt state lawmakers to abandon one tailpipe program just as it was going into effect. It was replaced by more convenient but less stringent tailpipe tests in 1997.

Mike White, chairman of the Regional Air Quality Planning Committee, an advisory group of local officials, business representatives and environmentalists, has long cautioned that Houston cannot comply with a federal smog-reduction deadline in 2007 without regulations that affect the public.

He agreed that the new Houston Area Survey results show a public willingness to "participate in environmental solutions" to solve air quality problems.

"The question is, when something does affect them, will they continue to support it?" he said. "Historically, when the time comes for the public to get involved, they're less enthusiastic."

Klineberg said the survey detected no connection between the usual "predictors" of concern about environmental issues -- such as education, age and political ideology -- and responses this year. Conservatives were about as likely as liberals to give the same answers, for instance.

One factor did predict reactions, he said. Individuals whose daily travel to and from work takes more than 15 minutes each way were likelier to oppose plans affecting vehicles.

To comply with the federal Clean Air Act, the TNRCC's new smog plan must have enough pollution cuts to bring ozone measurements below the health standard by 2007. Last year, Houston-area monitors recorded levels above that legal maximum on 52 days.

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