In July 2004, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (Air District) launched the Community Air Risk Evaluation Program (CARE), a novel approach to assessing potential health impacts to communities from toxic air contaminants, especially particulates from diesel exhaust. The goal is to establish more systematic methods to identify pollution sources that are having the highest impact on public health and more effectively target those sources for reduction. The program was developed by the Air District in response to public comments received during its regular public outreach efforts. District staff characterize the program as a pioneering attempt to gather real, on-the-ground data that will allow the district to intervene more effectively to reduce the health impacts of contaminants in Bay Area air.
The CARE program represents a change in focus for the Air District, as well as reflecting improvements in air quality monitoring technology. While the traditional focus of air monitoring has been on point sources of air pollution or on air contaminants generally, the CARE program will be an attempt to quantify and include the contributions of mobile sources and area sources to air pollution. Mobile sources include cars, trucks and other transportation vehicles, while area sources include common, widespread activities such as house-painting or the use of consumer products containing volatile chemicals. The initial focus of the CARE program will be on diesel particulates, now known to have carcinogenic effects. The focus will then be broadened to include other toxic air contaminants currently being monitored and regulated by the District.
The CARE program is the first attempt to comprehensively assess health risks from a combination of emissions from both stationary and mobile sources. It is also among the first to attempt to include the contributions of different types of air contaminants using real data rather than modeling. The South Coast Air Quality Management District's Multiple Air Toxics Exposure Study (MATES), completed in 2003, monitored over 30 air pollutants at ten sites in the Los Angeles air basin for one year in order to determine potential overall carcinogenic risk. The CARE program will provide enhanced air monitoring over the entire Bay Area; the information gathered will then be included in a pilot assessment of the cumulative risk from all toxic air contaminants to which the region is exposed.
The Air District is budgeting $1 million in fiscal 2004-2005 for the CARE program and expects the program to run for two to three years. Much of the budget will go into increased air monitoring to provide a systematic picture of toxic air pollutants and their distribution in the Bay Area. Data and results from the enhanced monitoring will feed into a detailed gridded emission inventory for diesel particulates and other air toxics.
The first phase of CARE is refining the monitoring method so that district staff can measure particulates that come from diesel versus other sources. Diesel particulates cannot be measured directly, so air quality engineers measure this through the proportion of elemental carbon versus organic carbon in an air sample. Organic carbon comes primarily from cooking, wood smoke, and industrial sources, while soot generated by internal combustion engines is a main source of elemental carbon.
As the diesel particulate monitoring method is refined, the Air District will develop a detailed emissions inventory of the Bay Area. This emissions inventory will provide a map of where diesel particulates and other air toxics accumulate, helping to answer the question of whether particular communities and neighborhoods are disproportionately affected. If the emissions inventory indicates highly impacted communities, a second phase of the program will allow a more detailed assessment of those communities.
In this second phase, the BAAQMD will utilize data from the CARE emissions inventory to evaluate the relative contribution of various pollutant sources, such as wood burning, industrial sources, and cars, to particulate levels in the Bay Area in general. This cumulative risk analysis will allow the district to more effectively address the main sources of toxic air pollution in highly impacted communities. However, the Air District will not wait for a final assessment in order to take action in affected communities. If the emissions inventory indicates a community that is heavily impacted by mobile, area, or point sources, the district will work with communities and other partners to intervene and generate reductions in air pollutants in that community on a voluntary basis.
At this point the Air District does not have regulatory authority over mobile sources, although it has made good use of voluntary and incentive programs to reduce the impact of mobile emissions in Bay Area air. District activities have helped reduce the risk of health impacts from toxic air contaminants, excluding diesel particulates, by over fifty percent from 1994 to 2001. The CARE emissions inventory will allow the district to better target existing incentive program monies to reduce emissions from sources that contribute the most in terms of toxic air pollutants. In addition, it may provide a substantive argument for the district to seek additional authority to regulate specific emissions sources that are having the greatest public health impact.
The Air District conducted seven community meetings in September and October of 2004 to publicize the CARE program, and continues to provide updates to its broad list of interested parties. The initial focus of the program was in technical data-gathering (June and July of 2004); the Air District's focus for the remainder of 2004 is the formation of an advisory committee with representatives from environmental groups, health care professionals, scientists and community groups in order to provide direction on resource allocation for the program in the next two years.
Ann Blake
For more information, including participating in the Advisory Committee:
Eric Stevenson, Manager, Air Monitoring Section, estevenson@baaqmd.gov, (415) 749-4695.
Scott Lutz, Manager, Toxic Evaluation Section, slutz@baaqmd.gov, (415) 749-4676
How can a bus district carry more riders without buying more buses? The answer is bus rapid transit (BRT), a combination of strategies to make bus trips faster, so the same number of buses can make more trips. BRT buses do not run on schedules, instead using a "headway" system that sets a minimum time between buses, and they use routes where changes have been made that speed them through congestion.
Rex Gephart, Director of LA Metro, was the capstone speaker at a recent forum held in Oakland by the Mineta Transportation Institute. LA Metro now has a growing network of successful BRT bus routes. Gephart said that BRT is the best choice when buses are already doing well but trips are too slow, and ridership is too low to justify light or heavy rail. Heavy bus ridership can be handled by articulated buses. BRT also works when the alternative is a rail-bus transfer to make the trip.
Buses in Los Angeles were found to be moving only half the time they were on a route—the other half was spent at bus stops or sitting in traffic. With BRT, passenger trip time has been cut up to 29%. According to staff members from AC Transit and the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency (ACCMA), the East Bay's first BRT route, the Rapid Bus on San Pablo Avenue through several East Bay cities, has decreased travel time by 17% over the previous "limited" service on the route, and ridership has increased by 66%. Surveys have shown that 19% of new riders used to drive alone. AC Transit's second BRT route will run along Telegraph Avenue and International Boulevard/East 14th Street.
Implementation of BRT can be done in stages. The most basic stage is changing the location of transit stops, providing shelters and information signs showing when the next bus will arrive, and adding technology to buses to hurry or slow signal changes at intersections, called signal prioritization. The next stage includes shifting transit stops to the far side of intersections, so that a bus can enter traffic again as soon as passengers are on board, using "low floor" buses to speed boarding, and clearly marking buses as special service. Full-scale BRT uses dedicated bus lanes with boarding platforms; tickets are sold in machines on the platforms so that passengers can board at any door.
Speakers at the forum included ACCMA board members from the cities of Albany and Berkeley. The forum was hosted by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Other sponsors included Caltrans District 4, the Commonwealth Club, and the League of Women Voters of the Bay Area. An edited transcript and other materials from the forum are available on the Mineta Transportation Institute website, http://transweb.sjsu.edu.
The anniversaries come every year. Earthquakes —Loma Prieta and 1906—the Oakland Hills fire, the September 11 terrorist attacks, natural disasters and manmade ones, all reminders that the Bay Area needs to be prepared for an array of potential crises. A new regional plan, Taming Natural Disasters, has been developed by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) as part of the preparation for disasters in the region.
A disaster can be any type of large-scale event which happens relatively rapidly and has the potential for loss of life or major property damage. It is usually unexpected, but hopefully not unanticipated. In the Bay Area, the list of natural disasters which can be anticipated include earthquakes, floods, wildfires and landslides. Other threats include terrorist activity, infrastructure failures such as bridge or tunnel collapses, hazardous materials releases, major accidents and civil unrest. Any of these have the potential to disrupt regional transportation, interfere with delivery of necessities such as water, overtax local and regional emergency services, and impact the economy.
Obviously, efforts have already been made to mitigate hazards and prepare responses. For many years ABAG has been researching regional impacts of future earthquakes. East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) is nearing the end of a ten-year seismic retrofit program (see article in this issue). EBMUD and other water districts have built interties between their systems for emergency use. Recycled water is sent to firefighting cisterns throughout San Francisco. Since the Oakland Hills fire, changes have been made in firefighting equipment for better compatibility among different agencies and fire departments, and more attention is being paid to urban-wildland interfaces such as the boundaries of watersheds and regional parklands. Lessons learned from these efforts have contributed to the measures listed in the new regional plan.
The draft plan was distributed at the October ABAG General Assembly and second annual Bay Area Conference on Homeland Security presented by the Bay Area Economic Forum. The two-day event addressed multiple ways in which Bay Area agencies and governments are preparing for disaster.
The plan is organized into eight areas of concern: infrastructure, health, housing, economy, government services, education, environment and land use. The first four chapters contain sections relevant to different natural disasters and a section on educating the public on protection and response. The chapter on Government Services addresses protection of critical facilities, ways to maintain and enhance local government capacity for emergency response and recovery, and cooperative efforts to identify and mitigate hazards. The chapter on Schools contains sections on critical facilities, use of schools as shelters, and the schools' role in educating the public about emergencies. Sustainability, pollution prevention and agricultural resiliency are addressed in the Environment chapter, and the Land Use chapter includes measures for specific hazards as well as a section on smart growth and its relevance to disaster planning.
The emphasis is on mitigating damage, through preventive measures such as seismic retrofits, good grading practices and floodplain management. However, response and remediation, which can also reduce damage, are included to some extent. Although the plan is aimed at natural disasters, many of the measures are also applicable to security threats or accidents.
The current plan is an interim plan which meets the minimum requirements for federally-mandated Local Hazard Mitigation Plans. Local governments which have approved it will be eligible to receive federal disaster mitigation funds once the plan is approved by the state Office of Emergency Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, probably in early 2005. A more comprehensive plan, with additional risk assessment data and mitigation strategies, will be completed by Spring 2006.
Leslie Stewart
For more information: Jeanne Perkins, ABAG, jeannep@abag.ca.gov, 510-464-7900
The current version of the plan is online at http://quake.abag.ca.gov/mitigation/plan.html
Technology is coming to the aid of the Port of Oakland as it works to meet new homeland security requirements. Everyone involved in Port security is concerned with the possible impact of a security incident, both because of the immediate damage which could be done and because response, investigation and cleanup could cripple Port operations and have severe economic effects over a longer term. The Bay Area is fortunate that soon after September 11, security agencies, the Port, and shippers began working together to close the gaps in security around the region's ports. Some of the innovative measures they created to respond to threats have been used as models in other parts of the country.
Ships no longer arrive with containers full of cargo which might not actually match the manifests, or with personnel who have not been screened for access to a critical transportation hub. Now, cargo shippers are required to supply detailed information about cargo, crew and passengers 96 hours before entering the Bay, and containers must pass screening similar to that given to luggage in airports before leaving the Port.
Maritime security has moved quickly to a new level, and experts expect to see continued rapid change into the next decade. The Coast Guard, which has already increased funding for port security from 2% to 25% in a budget which has doubled since 2001, is implementing computer upgrades and adding new vessels. Coast Guard sea marshals board ships outside the Golden Gate to inspect the vessels and cargo and check on personnel. On ships with particularly hazardous cargoes, usually bulk cargoes such as petroleum products, the marshals accompany the ship to its final docking point.
The Coast Guard has added a number of new patrol boats, and has tripled its staff over a two-year time period. It works closely with local law enforcement, the US Navy, and the US Customs Service to restrict access to maritime facilities for greater security. Maritime safety zones have now been established around the shorelines of both San Francisco and Oakland International Airports. In January 2004, the Alameda County Sheriff's Office added a shoreline patrol boat which assists in patrolling areas near Oakland's airport and seaport. The federal grant for port protection will also fund jet skis and a special tactics SCUBA team.
The Port of Oakland, like other major US ports, has recently completed a maritime security plan. Once cargo containers arrive at the Port of Oakland, they are screened to determine that the contents match the manifests. Random searches verify paper records. Currently, the Port has two large drive-through scanners that X-ray the containers as trucks leave the Port. A similar scanner that checks for radioactivity is available at the Port of San Francisco.
The next generation of security devices is already in the pipeline. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is working on a neutron scanner which would detect nuclear weapons concealed in cargo containers. "Smart boxes", or containers with special identification, could eliminate most of the need for scanning if they prove reliable and a consistent technology is adopted.
A typical smart box has a strong metal seal with a unique ID number. A sensor behind the lock and key mechanism reveals tampering, which prevents substitution or contamination of the contents, and also deterrs theft, an incentive for shippers to use the seals. Another incentive is that under an international trade plan known as C-TPAT, smart boxes shipped by C-TPAT members can take a streamlined route through ports, bypassing most inspections. Some smart boxes are also equipped with transponders which can sense and relay other information such as the location of the box.
An area where technology and protocols are still being developed is improved identification systems for truckers who access the Port. Currently, several types of ID are in use because of the multi-state nature of freight. Shippers and security agencies support development of a uniform ID issued only after a background check. Like other challenges for Port security, technology will probably help solve this problem soon, increasing safety while keeping cargo moving.
Leslie Stewart
For more information:
US Dept of Homeland Security fact sheet, http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/DHSPortSecurityFactSheet-062104.pdf
Port of Oakland, Harold Jones, Director of Communications, 510-627-1564, hjones@portoakland.com
A lack of water—for fighting fires—did far more damage to San Francisco in 1906 than the earthquake itself. A similar problem complicated response to the Oakland Hills fire in 1991. Water agencies understand that water is often an essential part of disaster response, but a disaster can also be catastrophic for water storage and delivery systems. While water systems may be functioning at reduced efficiency, the demand for water escalates in the first few days after a disaster, because of firefighting and medical needs. According to a 2002 report from the Bay Area Economic Forum, post-earthquake water shortages could shut down many businesses and industries, sometimes permanently, which would affect daily living, disaster recovery, jobs and the region's economy.
Engineers in the region's water agencies have been working to learn the lessons of past earthquakes, including exchanging ideas with counterparts in Japan. They know that old cast iron pipe cracks easily in quakes, particularly where soil liquefaction occurs, and that other types of pipe can pull apart if not properly designed and installed. They know that sloshing in storage tanks can create twists, bulges, and leaks which flood downhill neighborhoods. They have also seen that the Alaskan oil pipeline, designed to slide sideways as much as 20 feet, did so without breaking in a recent major quake. The agencies are applying this knowledge here and now to improve quake preparedness.
In late October, the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) announced that the water level behind San Pablo Dam had been lowered to decrease the potential for dam failure in a major quake on the Hayward Fault. Although the earthen dam has had regular inspections, the last rigorous evaluation was in the 1970s. Current structural analysis methods combined with recent USGS data on the Hayward Fault show that the risk of quake damage is greater than anticipated in the past.
Later that week, EBMUD hosted a forum on "The Earthquake Risk to Water Supplies", co-sponsored by the Northern California Chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, EBMUD, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD), and the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency (BAWSCA).
All of the water agencies sponsoring the forum have key water distribution pipelines that cross at least one major fault. Dr. David Schwartz from USGS told the forum participants that another major quake in the Bay Area is imminent, and much more likely than other threats faced by utilities, such as terrorist acts. "We can't predict `when'", he said, "but we can forecast `where' and `how big'." Since 1927 there have been very few quakes compared to the historic pattern in the region, but much of the region's growth has happened in that period. With all the major faults in the Bay Area, the likelihood of an earthquake larger than 6.5 magnitude is 90% in the next 30 years.
In the East Bay, EBMUD is nearing the end of a 10-year seismic retrofit program which has included storage tank strengthening, building miles of additional pipelines to create alternate distribution routes, and creation of a new segment for the Claremont Tunnel (see August/September 2003, November/December 1998 issues). Marilyn Miller of EBMUD says, "Our next steps include re-running our computer model to see how the improvements will function, planning for immediate post-event response, and setting up more frequent inspections, especially for older facilities."
A recent state law requires SFPUC to develop an emergency response plan for restoring water service after an earthquake as part of rebuilding the Hetch Hetchy water system. Approximately half of the 77 projects in the SFPUC emergency response plan are regional, and most are costly. A particular concern for SFPUC has been the Irvington Tunnel, which has not been inspected in decades because there is no alternative facility which could be put into service to allow access to the tunnel. Since SFPUC supplies water via BAWSCA agencies to many residents of water districts outside San Francisco as well as within the city, the law also requires planning for equitable water distribution following a disaster. In the meantime, San Mateo county and city officials have already created a water distribution plan for emergencies.
In the South Bay, SCVWD is currently drafting a water infrastructure reliability plan to address the three most likely threats—earthquake, regional power outage, and flooding/landslide hazards. The plan sets level of service goals for service after a disaster, evaluates what is needed to reduce the time when water will not be available to retail suppliers who purchase water from SCVWD for their customers, and presents the next steps for implementation. These include stockpiling extra pipe for repairs so it will be available post-disaster, adding groundwater wells throughout the district, and securing district facilities against damage so that staff and equipment will be safe and functional. The draft plan will be available in December.
Getting assistance from outside the Bay Area after a major disaster, particularly if the need is great, may take a long time. Equipment and supplies would need to share a dysfunctional transportation network with other disaster relief. However, because the region is so large, not all agencies would be equally damaged in a disaster, making mutual aid agreements an important component of planning. Over the past few years a number of districts have built interties between their distribution systems to bypass outages. In addition, agreements to share equipment and supplies which were developed after the Oakland Hills fire have been formally incorporated into a mutual-aid framework called WARN, which now includes agencies throughout California.
The goal for all the regional water agencies is to keep water available during and after a disaster, for firefighters, hospitals, homes and businesses. When—not if—an earthquake occurs, the region's future may depend on how well the lessons from previous disasters have been learned.
Leslie Stewart
For more information: Materials from the October forum are online at http://www.quake06.org/quake06/u_and_t.html
October is the anniversary month of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and it brings a spate of disaster preparedness events and information. This year, October brought reports on how earthquakes would affect the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) system and the regional transportation network, a timely discussion given the BART seismic retrofit bond measure on the November ballot. It also brought a new round of debates over replacement of the east span of the Bay Bridge, while work progressed on seismic retrofits on the Richmond-San Rafael and Golden Gate Bridges.
However, since September 2001, many transportation agencies have replaced earthquakes with terrorism at the top of their disaster planning lists. In part, this is because terrorism is a relatively new concern, while planning for many natural disasters has already been developed and implemented. Homeland security is also a high priority for the public, which wants assurances from agencies that "steps are being taken" to keep travelers safe, especially after the March 2004 train bombings in Madrid heightened concern.
Over the past three years, agencies have been scrambling to gather information from each other and from overseas counterparts, and to meet a series of homeland security deadlines. Funding has not kept up with need_for example, BART has requested $70-$80 million in Homeland Security grants and has received only $4.9 million. Congressional estimates showed that as of July, $9 had been spent per airline passenger but only half a cent had been spent per transit rider, although Americans take 11 million transit trips a day, compared with 1.8 million by air.
Agencies have been reluctant to discuss security measures in detail, because this can make it easier to circumvent them, but some are highly visible, such as passenger screening in airports. In the weeks prior to the November election, trucks crossing the Bay Bridge were subject to checks, and SWAT teams did sweeps on BART cars.
So far, no Bay Area transit agency has announced plans for screening passengers, although this is being done on the East Coast for some Amtrak commuter trains and randomly on the Boston subway. Brian Jenkins, a security expert and a research associate of the Mineta Transportation Institute, estimates that it would take approximately 780,000 screeners to do airport-style screening for the nation's bus and subway systems, making this impractical in most cases.
Jenkins and others suggest there are a number of "best practices" for subways and buses that will be less costly and involve less delay than full passenger screening. Many are already being implemented in the Bay Area.
Some of the homeland security measures will make riders safer on a daily basis, because surveillance cameras and additional personnel allow better overall enforcement and response to emergencies. Other measures, such as revised evacuation routes or more frequent training, will help in fires or earthquakes as well as terrorist incidents. Most transit riders would agree that these steps are well worth the cost if they provide a safer trip.
Leslie Stewart
Phase 3 of the regional planning process began on November 12, 2004 with the release of the Draft Transportation 2030 (T-2030) Plan and the Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). Several related reports will be released during the next two months: a detailed project "notebook", the Performance Measures Report, an environmental justice analysis, and a summary of the public outreach activities for the plan.
A copy of the Plan is available from MTC, http://www.mtc.ca.gov/T2030 or 510-464-7841. For previous Monitor articles on the T-2030 Plan, go to the Monitor homepage and enter "Transportation 2030" in the search box.
Nov. 12, 2004 - Release of Draft T-2030 Plan and Draft EIR
Dec. 10, 2004 - MTC Planning & Operations Committee: Discussion of Draft EIR
Dec. 15, 2004 - Public workshop for comments on Draft Plan and Draft EIR
Jan. 5, 2005 - Close of comments for Draft Plan and Draft EIR
Jan. 14, 2005 - MTC Planning & Operations Committee: Summary of Draft Plan comments; draft of air quality conformity analysis
Feb. 11, 2005 - MTC Planning & Operations Committee: Review of Final Plan and Final EIR
Feb. 23, 2005 - Approval of EIR and Plan by full MTC Commission
Some Regional Measure 2 funds may now be used for transit operations. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has received authorization from the federal highway and transit agencies, allowing this use for any RM2 tolls except those collected on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and the Benicia Bridge. The latest round of RM2 allocations will include $2.1 million in operating funds for Golden Gate Transit's #40 bus across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. (October/November 2004)
On November 18 the Association of Bay Area Governments Executive Board named Henry Gardner to replace Gene Leong, who is stepping down in January after 9 years as Executive Director. Gardner, who joined the ABAG staff a couple of years ago, is also known regionally for his tenure as City Manager of Oakland.
Passed: Bay Area Rapid Transit District Measure AA, AC Transit District Measure BB and East Bay Regional Parks District Measure CC; transportation sales tax measures in Contra Costa, Marin, and San Mateo Counties, all with over 70% of the vote. Sonoma County's Measure M was tighter, barely gaining the required 2/3 vote at press time.
Voters also elected three new BART Board members and one new member on the AC Transit Board.
Voters in Napa County passed an advisory measure supporting widening Jamieson Canyon Road.
Failed: Solano County Measure A, with only 63.7% of the vote.
Full information on all measures and races is available at http://www.smartvoter.org