INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The air quality in all or part of 18 mostly urban counties in Indiana doesn’t meet newly tightened standards for lung-clogging soot particles that can sicken children and the elderly, federal officials said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s soot “nonattainment” list, released Monday, includes all of 13 Indiana counties and parts of five others among the 211 counties in 25 states that violate the new restrictions.

Any county that ends up on the EPA’s final list of counties that violate the new standards will face pressure to cut levels of the microscopic pollution particles released by power plants, diesel-burning trucks, cars and factories.

States with nonattainment counties now have three years to work with communities to develop plans for improving air quality in the noncompliant areas, or risk sanctions such as fines.

The EPA’s current designations are based on air data from 2005, 2006, and 2007.

But Rob Elstro, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, said Indiana has until Feb. 20 to provide the EPA with air-quality data from 2008.

He said IDEM expects that new air data to prompt the EPA to remove some of the Indiana counties from its soot nonattainment list before that list becomes final.

However, large industries in the counties or parts of counties on the final list will face tighter permitting requirements if they plan to build a new plant or expand an existing one, Elstro said.

Those businesses would need to find ways to offset any new soot emissions, such as by upgrading their emission control systems, to remove more soot than a new or expanded plant would produce.

“This requirement would not allow them to increase the total output. It could mean they would have to upgrade equipment or even shut down parts of the facility,” Elstro said.

The new soot standards regulate levels of microscopic pollution particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers -- one-30th the diameter of a human hair -- released by diesel-burning trucks, automobiles, power plants, wood-burning stoves and other sources. Those particles, which can lodge in people’s lungs and even their blood vessels, are a major contributor to respiratory problems in children, the elderly and people with existing illnesses.

The EPA said in 1997 that cutting fine-particle pollution would save 15,000 people a year from premature deaths due to heart and lung diseases aggravated by soot-filled air.

Jesse Kharbanda, executive director of the Hoosier Environmental Council, said the state’s air quality problems highlight the need for increasing the availability of public transit systems to reduce the number of cars spewing exhaust on the state’s roads. The Indianapolis-based environmental advocacy group is supporting legislation aimed at buoying public transportation systems in the upcoming session of the General Assembly.

The 18 Indiana counties listed on the EPA’s soot nonattainment list are: Clark, Dearborn, Floyd, Gibson, Hamilton, Hendricks, Jefferson, Johnson, Knox, Lake, Marion, Morgan, Pike, Porter, Spencer, Tippecanoe, Vanderburgh and Warrick.

Posted 12/24/2008