By Local smog level gets clean rating

The Bay Area received the second cleanest air quality rating on record since the Bay Area Air Quality District began monitoring the air in 1969. The only year with a cleaner rating was 1997.

The district monitors air quality using a measurement called the federal one-hour standard. Each federal hour is equivalent to 12 parts (of pollution) per hundred million.

The level of pollution does not meet federal air standards if it exceeds 12.

This year’s Bay Area summertime smog season ended with one day in excess of the federal one-hour ozone standard.

The single excess occurred July 3 in Concord.

Air quality officials said the Bay Area has shown steady improvement over the past 30 years.

The government issues a smog advisory alert when the level of pollution reaches 20 parts per hundred million.

There has not been a smog alert in the Bay Area since 1983. In 1969, the region experienced 65 days over the same federal one-hour ozone standard.

Los Altos

No trick-or-treating on Orange Avenue

Peninsula

The Los Altos City Council cancelled this year’s annual “Los Altos Safe Street Halloween Project” Oct. 31 along Orange Avenue and Edgewood Lane and are encouraging children to trick-or-treat elsewhere.

The Orange Avenue neighborhood is not prepared to handle the enourmous crowd that has traditionally made the street its Halloween destination.

The council denied sponsors the special event permit needed to block off the area to traffic after residents said the event had become a victim of its own success, attracting as many as 800 trick-or-treaters.

-Town Crier Staff Report