Are the days of crystal blue skies in the Coachella Valley over? One would think after the recent Desert Sun article “Pollution in paradise.” We shouldn't accept the premise that brown skies are our future.

The article focused on the poor quality of the air throughout Riverside County but there also was good news. “The Coachella Valley, too, has seen the number of days exceeding the federal standard shrink from 61 days in 2006 to 55 last year at a Palm Springs monitoring station. At the Indio monitoring station, the number of days in the unhealthy range dropped from 28 in 2006 to 22.” The article went on to discuss that federal and state budget cuts might reverse this trend and put us back on a road to dirty air.

I contend that local governments and transit providers have put in place key programs that will continue to reduce the air pollution in the valley. These include:

An all-CNG (compressed natural gas) or hydrogen fuel cell bus fleet at SunLine Transit.

Converting taxi fleets to CNG vehicles.

Cathedral City and Palm Desert requiring that their solid waste hauler have only alternative-fuel trucks service their communities, which means the entire valley no longer has diesel-fueled trucks in our neighborhoods.

The Coachella Valley Association of Government coordinating a valley wide bike trail system and mandating all street-sweeping vehicles to be of alternative fuels and public CNG refueling stations in a number of valley cities.

We all know that these measures, while laudatory, are not going to be enough to continue to withstand the pressures of car, truck and rail emissions from entering the valley. What else can we do?

Nationally, President Barack Obama has, through executive order mandated that the entire federal fleet will be on alternative fuels by 2015, and UPS has announced the same date for conversion of their fleet.

On June 29, the Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Committee of the South Coast Air Quality Management District celebrated its 20th anniversary with a look back but more importantly by seeing what regions, such as the Coachella Valley, can do for the future. These measures include:

Establishing walking trails, such as El Monte has in its Arceo Walk. Residents have safe places to walk but have them next to shops, parks and homes so that walking can become an alternative to driving.

Require school bus companies to convert to alternative fuels to obtain a school district's transportation contract.

Partner with Southern California Edison and auto companies such as Nissan and Honda to build the necessary recharging infrastructure for electric vehicles to make them more practical for outlying communities like ours.

And continue signal synchronization on all valley arterials to lessen queuing at signal lights.

One of the major items that could go a tremendous way in reducing the valley's reliance on automobiles would be the expansion of passenger rail service in and out of the valley. CVAG and the Riverside County Transportation Commission are working diligently with Amtrak to make that happen and hope to have several demonstration trains in the upcoming season to show the viability of the effort.

Ultimately, government and business can lead and provide incentives, but it will be left to each of us to accept responsibility for our own actions to reduce pollution. Invest in an electric vehicle, use a bicycle to go to work or even just take a walk to the market.

This is not a fight already lost. We can and must succeed.

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