Butte County meets smog standard

Nine areas in California, including Butte County, have met regulatory deadlines imposed by 1997’s Clean Air Act.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Mariposa, Tuolumne and Ventura counties and parts of Kern, Nevada and Sutter counties met national health-based air-quality standards for smog—or ground-level ozone—according to an EPA press release.

The guidelines were based on air-quality data collected from state and local monitors that detect air pollutants. Amador, Sutter and Tuolumne counties also met the more stringent standards set by the most recent national ozone law, introduced in 2008.