Re: “Colorado’s emission testing isn’t working,” July 11 guest commentary.
Donald Stedman wrote that Colorado’s current vehicle inspection program isn’t working, and suggested the state could achieve the same pollution reduction benefit if it replaced the current system with a new program that relies solely on roadside emissions testing equipment to identify high-emitting vehicles. The state’s current program, however, has proven to be the best tool to significantly reduce harmful emissions from high-emitting vehicles.
While Dr. Stedman is respected as one of the inventors of the roadside emission testing units, the facts just don’t support his opinion.
In 2010 alone, the current emissions testing program identified more than 60,000 heavily polluting vehicles in the Denver metro area. As a result of the repair or replacement of these vehicles, the program reduced emissions of harmful ground-level, ozone-causing emissions by more than 14 tons per day. This is a program that works, providing cleaner air to Denver-area citizens each and every day.
While the current emissions testing program is a cost-effective way to significantly reduce ozone causing emissions from the state’s vehicle fleet, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment — which oversees the auto emissions testing program — is committed to finding ways to reduce the cost and inconvenience of the program while still maintaining a high level of emissions reductions. As part of these efforts, from 2007 to 2010, the department implemented the largest program ever undertaken anywhere in the world to study the effectiveness of using roadside emissions testing equipment to identify high-emitting vehicles.
Based on extensive data from this study, the department found that while roadside emissions testing equipment could be used to identify some high-emitting vehicles, the number of vehicles identified and the emission reductions that could be achieved from these vehicles was a small fraction of the benefit achieved by the current inspection program.
The study data further showed most of the vehicles identified as “dirty” by the roadside equipment were not actually high emitters. Based on this data, an independent contractor hired by the state auditor concluded that a program based on the use of roadside emission testing could not viably replace the current emissions testing program.
Accordingly, as much as everyone might like a cheaper, more convenient way to find dirty vehicles, the data dictate that the existing program is currently the best tool to significantly reduce harmful emissions from these high emitters and therefore ought to be continued.
Chris Urbina is executive director and chief medical officer of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Garry Kaufman is program manager for the department’s Air Pollution Control Division.
