James Lents knows better than anyone else how difficult it will be to clean up the smoggy skies of Southern California. As executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), Lents is charged with enforcing antipollution regulations in the 6,600-sq.-mi. area that encompasses Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties. The 12 million people, 8 million motor vehicles and 31,000 businesses in the area spew 1,246 tons of noxious gases into the air every day.
The southland's smoggy air largely results from poor atmospheric ventilation in the bowl-shaped South Coast Air Basin, where an "inversion layer" traps...
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