Metro Atlanta smog season ends with no improvements

ATLANTA - Smog season -- which got worse this year -- ended Monday in metro Atlanta. Environmental experts now question whether the region will be able to meet federal clean air standards by 2004. <br> <br> The region&#39;s smog violated federal standards on seven days, most in June. Under a stricter measure that eventually will be put in place, the region would have spent 38 days over the limit this summer. <br> <br> The Environmental Protection Agency extended a 1999 deadline to meet clean air standards to 2004 for metro Atlanta and more than a dozen other regions across the country. <br> <br> But Georgia&#39;s environmental regulators are still hopeful. Regulations will soon require cleaner-burning gas to be sold in 45 counties, and there are tighter controls on power plants. Cars in metro Atlanta already have to be inspected annually to make sure their emissions meet the standards. <br> <br> Smog is the ground-level ozone produced when emissions mix with sunlight. Most of the ozone-forming pollution comes from cars, and it gets worse in the summer heat. <br> <br> Asthma and other respiratory problems are connected to smog, but the public health cost is hard to gauge.

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