Ozone Alert Program

This recipe is from the Indian Nations Council of Governments (INCOP) Air Quality Committee, a coalition of government, business, industry, health and environmental organizations in the Tulsa area. Forecast days when an exceedance is most likely, then encourage short-term action.

Ingredients:

This voluntary program forecasts (one day in advance) when weather conditions are likely to push a city into an ozone exceedance. On those Ozone ALERT! days, residents are asked to change their behavior -- just one day at a time.

Using input from your local weatherpeople, your health department issues an Ozone ALERT! warning by 3:00 p.m. for the following day. They fax the alert to a predetermined list of area businesses who have agreed to participate in the program. These businesses pass the word along to their employees before these employees leave for the day. The businesses encourage their employees to limit driving, postpone refueling, and/or use carpools, telecommuting, public transportation, and staggered work hours to reduce the emission load from commuter vehicles.

Incentives to commuters to change their behavior can include free bus passes, a financial reward -- cash or perhaps movie tickets -- for avoiding a single occupancy vehicle. The alert days are also publicized via live radio announcements during P.M. drive-time and on changeable message boards on the freeways seen by homeward-bound commuters.

Utensils:

• High profile local public officials
• Leadership employers
• Local concerned citizens
• Environmental or health groups
• Local weather personalities

Servings:

With enough participation from businesses and the general public, you can dramatically improve your chances of avoiding an ozone exceedance.

Hints from the Chef:

Because what you ask people to do is for a short time -- just one day! -- participation by the public can be high. It's important to maintain an accurate model to predict the potentially high-ozone days and then build a fax and e-mail notification system to get the word out fast and efficiently to businesses and local media. You could consider partnering with with vendors to use Reid Vapor Pressure gas during ozone season. Ask retailers to post signs requesting motorists to fill up after 6:00 p.m. Ask mass transit to contribute free bus rides on those days. You can even ask specific point sources in your city to make one-day concessions such as a painting company which agrees to suspend operations the next morning or a landscape maintenance company which agrees to start using their mowers and blowers two hours later tomorrow.

Ozone Alert! Program Case Study