Jet skis face more restrictions

The state Air Resources Board's staff called for the restrictions after examining alarming data on the amount of pollutants that jet skis and two-cycle outboard motors release into the air.

The board staff noted that last year the amount of hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen released by jet skis and outboard motors totaled 312 tons per day.

That is almost a quarter of the 1,374 tons released per day by the state's 25 million cars.

In another stunning comparison, the staff noted that exhaust emissions from two hours of a jet ski's operation is equivalent to the emissions from a 1998 car operated for about 130,000 miles.

"We have been pushing automakers to make cleaner cars for the last 30 years, and automakers are now making cars that are more than 90 percent cleaner than new cars were in the 1970s," air board spokesman Allan Hirsch told The San Francisco Chronicle.

"We have not asked the same from the boating industry until now."

The goal of the staff's proposed regulations is to reduce hydrocarbon emissions from outboard and jet ski engines 75 percent by the year 2025.

The regulations would affect new models starting in 2001 and would result in the need to convert more models to cleaner technologies, Hirsch said.

The board staff also cited concerns over California's long-range need to meet federal air quality standards, and over the discharge of unburned fuel into lakes.

The latter concern has helped make emissions by jet skis and two-cycle outboard motors a heated controversy pitting environmentalists and the nation's boating industry.

At Lake Tahoe, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency has adopted a June 1999 ban on two-cycle engines, which propel most outboard motorboats and jet skis.

Closed-door settlement talks are continuing in efforts to resolve a lawsuit over the ban. Lawyers for the bi-state agency, engine manufacturers and boating concessionaires are meeting.

The air board's proposed regulations will be discussed at a workshop Thursday in El Monte. The board is not scheduled to consider the issue until December.

California has about 161,000 personal watercraft - commonly known as "jet skis" after a popular model - and about 346,000 outboard boat engines.

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