A study of pollution generated by aircraft at Santa Monica Airport (SMO) has galvanized residents around the airport who have been fighting for many years to curtail aircraft operations and possibly given them new ammunition in their battle.
At a community forum held January 11, a standing-room-only crowd listened to a panel of experts discussing the results of the pollution study. Los Angeles city councilmember Bill Rosendahl promised the crowd that it is time to take “radical action” against jets operating from the airport.
The study was not requested by a particular group. Suzanne Paulson, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Studies, decided to do the study to see what kind of emissions could be detected around the airport. She lives near the airport and occasionally smells jet fuel fumes, and she wondered if emissions from the airport could be measured and, if so, what these emissions might contain.
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