Long Beach's gunk winds up in Grand Canyon

It is one of the world's largest shipping ports. It has a commercial airport and four major freeways. Oil is pumped from its ground. Tourists flock to visit the legendary ship that rests here, to see its world-aquarium and to cheer at its annual grand prix race. Nearly 30,000 students commute to attend school here. All  that, and there's sun and sea.

Good thing it has no conscience.

For if it did, Long Beach might do something about the tons of pollution it sends to Huntington Beach, to the San Gabriel Valley, even to the Grand Canyon.

Long Beach has an air pollution problem, and it shares it with a lot of other people.

For instance, Long Beach -- with its massive industrial infrastructure -- is meeting federal air quality standards. However, Huntington Beach, which some characterize as an upper-middle class ghetto, had six days in 1998 when its level of particulate matter exceeded federal standards, according to the Air Quality Management District.

Most of the city's pollution blows toward the San Gabriel Valley, where it can linger, and some eventually travels to Arizona, according to Irisita Azary, a California State University Long Beach professor of geography.

"Geographically, we are a bowl with mountains,'' Azary said. "The prevailing winds hit the mountains and hold the pollution there."

Even native peoples referred to the area as vthe Valley of the Smoke.ä Such is the geography's impact of air quality, according to Azary.

Instead of camp fire, though, today much of that smoke comes from automobiles and trucks. Long Beach and San Pedro in particular contribute a great deal to the region's diesel pollution, according to Tim Carmichael of the Coalition for Clean Air.

"Trucks line up in the ports and idle," he said. "Collectively you've got hundreds of trucks idling."

And, surprising perhaps, there is no law against letting a vehicle idle endlessly.

"We can only cite diesels for blowing smoke that is too black for too long," said John Stolpe, a Long Beach commercial enforcement officer.

Officers are trained how to detect smoke that is illegally dirty, but even then trucks must blow bad smoke into the atmosphere for more than 10 seconds before they can be cited.