Citizens Sue EPA in Ongoing Effort to Clean Up Atlanta's Air

A coalition of environmental and civil rights groups filed suit today in federal court against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to reclassify metro Atlanta?s air pollution status from ?serious? to ?severe,? the worst category possible for Atlanta under federal law. The lawsuit is the latest move in the intensifying dispute over resolving the notorious air pollution and transportation problems in the South?s largest urban region.

Metro Atlanta has been in ?serious non-attainment? for ozone pollution based on federal health standards under the Clean Air Act for more than twenty years. Ground-level ozone is a colorless, odorless gas that causes or worsens respiratory ailments such as asthma, particularly in children and the elderly. In Atlanta, where run-away sprawl development has resulted in the longest driving distances per person per day in the country, more ozone pollution comes from motor vehicle emissions than any other source.

The Atlanta region failed to meet the November 15, 1999, federal deadline to attain federal clean air standards. In fact, during the summer of 1999, the Atlanta region had the highest number of unhealthy days in the decade, with 22 days above the applicable standard. The coalition is asking the federal courts to compel EPA to immediately reclassify the region?s air quality non-attainment status to ?severe.? (The worst category is ?extreme,? which under federal law can only be applied to Los Angeles.)

?EPA?s failure to comply with the law means Atlantans have to keep breathing some of the most polluted air in the nation,? said Wesley Woolf, Director of the Southern Environmental Law Center?s Atlanta office and legal counsel for the plaintiff groups: the Georgia Chapter of the Sierra Club, Georgia Coalition for the People?s Agenda, Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice, and Environmental Defense. Woolf said a classification of ?severe non-attainment? carries more protective pollution control requirements and will hasten the process for cleaning up the air in metro Atlanta. Upon reclassification, new air quality and transportation plans must be developed with new controls on both smokestacks and mobile sources, including ?transportation control measures? to limit vehicle miles traveled.

In July, the groups filed a 60-day notice of their intent to sue EPA, a required step under the Clean Air Act. They held off on filing the lawsuit as a measure of good faith when they entered into negotiations with state and regional officials this fall to reach a comprehensive settlement of legal disputes regarding the region?s air quality and transportation planning. Metro Atlanta has become the nation?s ?poster city? for sprawl at its worst massive traffic jams, the most miles driven in the country (35 miles per day for every man, woman and child), loss of open space at a rate of 50 acres a day, water pollution from construction runoff, auto emissions bad enough to send thousands of people to the hospital each summer, and a transportation system that largely bypasses the region?s low-income and minority communities.

?Thirty percent of Atlantans do not own cars and are dependent upon public transportation for their travel,? said Sherrill Marcus of the Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice. ?The transportation plan shows that the ability of these citizens to access jobs will decline for the next fifteen years an unacceptable result of the plan we have been attempting to have adjusted for improvement.?

The negotiations were close to yielding a workable, comprehensive solution that not only addressed Atlanta?s problems, but also provided a national model for many other metropolitan areas by linking land use planning, transportation spending, environmental quality and social equity. However, earlier this month, Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes was advised to abruptly end the negotiations, scuttling for the time being any hope of reaching an agreement.

?The exacerbation of asthma problems in metro-Atlanta is a critical issue we hoped to effectively address during the negotiations,? said Richard S. Bright of the Georgia Coalition for a People?s Agenda. ?Children and senior citizens are adversely impacted the most by continuing air pollution.?

?We believe the Governor also wants to resolve the conflict between sprawl and healthy and just communities,? said Bryan Hager, the Sierra Club?s Georgia Sprawl Campaign Director. ?We feel compelled to move forward with our litigation to improve air quality, but we welcome any opportunity to continue talking with the Governor?s representatives to correct problems with the regional transportation and air quality plans.?

?We are disappointed that we have been forced to take this course of action. Unfortunately, the agencies left us no other alternative,? said Environmental Defense Atlanta transportation project director John Bowman. ?Despite what those who are not a part of this process may say, this lawsuit is about clean and healthy air for all Atlantans.?

The 13-county Atlanta region has the worst air pollution in the Southeast: More people die in the region from air pollution than from automobile accidents. Under federal law the region cannot spend federal funds to expand highways unless the state has adopted a plan to clean the air, and the regional transportation plan complies with the state clean air plan. In 1999, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division proposed a new clean air plan that does not show the region meeting clean air standards until at least 2004. During the summer of 2000, the Atlanta Regional Commission and Georgia Regional Transportation Authority approved a new transportation plan that does not help improve air quality.