A mayoral task force says the city should keep the municipal I/M program that requires most drivers to get their vehicles regularly inspected for air-polluting emissions.
At its final meeting Thursday, the Mayor's I/M Task Force decided to advise the Anchorage Assembly and Mayor Mark Begich that the city should make some minor changes in the 22-year-old program -- for example, allowing new vehicles to wait six years instead of four to have their first I/M test.
But the inspections regimen should remain essentially as it is, according to the task force. So drivers would continue bringing their cars to an I/M station every two years and paying roughly $60 for the test.
The group's major recommendations are almost certain to meet opposition from some members of the Assembly. An ordinance that would repeal the I/M program in its entirety was introduced at the body's meeting this week. A public hearing on the issue is scheduled for its Oct. 9 meeting.
Dick Traini, one of five Assembly members who signed onto the measure Tuesday night, said Thursday it didn't much matter what the task force decides about the program.
The I/M program has done its job, Traini said. The city's air hasn't busted federal pollution standards in 11 years, and new vehicles are designed so much better nowadays, they don't need monitoring.
"I've looked at the evidence," Traini said.
Proposals to have the program add new kinds of inspections -- for excessive noise, tinted windows and safety features -- are police matters, not the purview of an inspections station, he said.
The task force did discuss noise, safety and other issues that are not part of the current program. It decided to advise the city and state governments to explore such matters, including eliminating the current exemption for diesel-fueled vehicles and possibly establishing new exemptions for hybrid cars and other technological advancements. But those would be for future consideration.
Right now it was a matter of keeping a healthy I/M program.
Only three of the 14 members of the task force thought the program should be scrapped, said Brian Saylor, the panel's chair. Those included Assemblyman Bill Starr, another of the five who introduced Tuesday's repeal measure; Joe Griffith of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, and Ray Agen, owner of an automotive shop that performs I/M inspections and will stand to lose money if the program is scrapped.
"The program hit its goal to reduce carbon monoxide levels. It's done that," Agen said at the opening of Thursday's discussion.
The other 11 members of the task force -- who include officials of the city's air quality program, a petroleum engineer, a physician, an economics professor, a director of the Alaska Center for the Environment, and others -- generally felt the program not only is necessary for continued monitoring of the city's air but also for making those who help to pollute the air pay for a program that helps reduce the pollution.
Carbon monoxide levels may be down, said physician Mary Ellen Gordian, a senior member of UAA's Institute for Social and Economic Research. "But air pollution at current levels is still a problem for health."
Eternal vigilance is the price of healthy air, said Saylor, the director of the UAA Institute for Circumpolar Health.
"You certainly want to continue monitoring the air for public health reasons," he said.
In an interview later, Saylor said eliminating the I/M program could set Anchorage up for a worsening of air in the same way that slack concern for the occurrence of tuberculosis has led to the emergence of a stronger strain of TB in Alaska and elsewhere in the world.
The I/M program was set up in 1985 when the city was often exceeding federal air-quality standards.
Motorists pay nearly $9 million a year to test, certify and repair their vehicles to meet the level of acceptable emission of carbon monoxide and other pollutants.
Nearly $2 million of that goes to the city for spending on the I/M program and for other air-quality costs, according to Steve Morris, director of the city's air quality program and a member of the task force. State law prohibits using I/M revenues for any other purposes, he said.
For motorists whose cars fail the test, the average cost to fix an emissions problem is about $285.
Find Peter Porco online at adn.com/contact/pporco or call 257-4582.
