Quote:
Originally Posted by Relaited
I meet with a San Diego County City on Monday, I do not have any devious intentions. They are concerned that the Total Maximum Daily Loads as put out by the SWCB will create a finable offense as the City cannot just allow things to happen without proper controls.
Now, as they are introducing those controls, I advocate reasonable controls. Use a wash mat, No Rinse, Steam or waterless and best available technology as a best management practice.
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Well, I wish them well. Here in NJ, about a dozen years ago, we weren't passing our Clean Air Act air quality standards. So even though we are one of the minority of states that does regular inspections, all of the state and private inspection stations, at an enormous cost, switched over to dynamometer emissions testing, so they could test just like the EPA, and get all those polluting cars fixed. Hundreds of private inspection stations (gas stations and tire places and car dealers) gave up doing inspection rather than spend the $100,000 or more to put in the new test equipment.
How did that work out? Well, the state tore out all the dynamometers, and now just check to see if your "check engine" light is on. Why? Because it turned out that taking the time to fail 100 or 1000 cars that are marginally over the emissions limit makes less difference than taking one car off the road that is grossly polluting. What's the easiest way to tell a gross polluter? By seeing if the car's OBDII system is TELLING them if something is wrong. Not that they are saying it's right for those 100 or 1000 cars to be slightly out of spec, just that it's more effective in the long run to zero in on the gross polluters.
Moral of the story? It's the Pareto principle, that 20% of the cars are going to cause 80% of the problems. Or in this case, IMO that most of the car-based contaminants in the ocean, lakes, and streams are going to come from the cars driving on the road, and not the small percentage of cars that are washed in the driveway or by mobile detailers.