Auto-Intoxication in Los Angeles

For many a sun-worshiping Southern Californian, the thick, eye-irritating blanket that often covers Los Angeles and has already pushed past the mountains into the San Fernando Valley is almost a way of life. The acrid murk is concocted in the area's own natural pressure cooker. A pair of the state's most abundant resources, sunshine and automobiles, cooperate on the job.

Daily, 10,000 tons of chemical compounds--hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides--pour from 3.5 million exhaust pipes. When there is no breeze, and the exhaust-laden air is trapped in the mountain-rimmed Los Angeles basin, the bright Southern California sunshine, which could be expected to burn off a simple, old-fashioned fog, goes to work on the invisible gases until a giant photochemical reaction takes place. The pallid, evil-smelling vapor that results is known as smog.

New & Expensive. California has just taken a small but hopeful step toward bringing the blue back to its skies. The state Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board approved four "afterburner" devices to help eliminate unburned hydrocarbons from auto exhausts. All 1966 cars sold next year in California must be equipped with one of the approved devices; later they will probably be mandatory for old cars as well. The prices will be enough to bring tears to the eyes of California car owners even on smog-free days: factory-installed jobs will add up to $120 to the cost of a new car, while installation on used cars may run as much as $81.50. In addition, it will probably cost as much as $42.50 a year to keep the afterburners tuned up and functioning efficiently. Even then, how well the devices will work is not certain. Smog officials point out that laboratory tests are not the same as everyday use in the public's poorly maintained and carelessly managed cars.

Los Angeles, California's smog capital, has been trying for years to get rid of its trapped pollution. Since 1957, the state Air Pollution Control District has prohibited the 1,500,000 backyard rubbish burners that produced 600 tons of acrid smoke a day. It extinguished dump fires, went after smoking factory chimneys, enforced a stiff set of regulations that kept oil refineries from letting more than a trickle of smoke and fumes escape into the air. These measures did some good. For one thing, they changed the color and character of the smog. Los Angeles smog is still maddeningly irritating to the eyes, but now, at least it is "clean," a glaring whitish color with practically no soot or smoke particles in it.

But in spite of the banishment of smoke and soot, Los Angeles smog has grown progressively worse, and the same kind of air pollution has appeared in other parts of California. Chemist Philip A. Leighton of Stanford University believes that unless something drastic is done, smog will soon shroud most of the inhabited parts of the state. Other even gloomier prophets foresee a California unfit for human life.

Smart & Switch. Somehow the state must learn how to get along while burning less smog-producing fuel. This could be accomplished by shifting to atomic energy for the generation of electric power and by setting up efficient public transportation to clear the clogged freeways. Radical smog fighters have even dared to suggest that Californians might some day soon be persuaded to drive smaller, less powerful and more practical cars. But big cars, like smog, are a big part of California living, and most Californians would rather smart than switch.

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