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Air Quality Complaints
The Ventura County Air Pollution Control District is the local agency responsible for ensuring healthful air quality for all Ventura county residents. You can help us protect public health by reporting air quality complaints and smoking vehicles.
What is an air quality complaint?Simply put, most air quality complaints are reported when people detect something unusual in the air which affects their quality of life. Complaints focus on any injury, detriment, nuisance, or annoyance that could harm people's health and well-being. The District receives over several hundred air quality complaints a year. The most common types are those caused by odors, smoke, paint spraying operations, agricultural burning, fugitive dust, diesel fumes, and construction equipment.
What happens when I make a complaint?The District responds quickly to all complaints, usually within 24 hours. It is also APCD policy to inform you of the results of the investigation, provided you have left a telephone number.
Every air pollution complaint is carefully reviewed. Whenever possible, an APCD inspector will contact you by telephone to determine the nature, source and cause of the complaint. The inspector will verify the complaint information as well as the description and frequency of any health problem alleged to have resulted from the situation. The inspector may ask you for additional information including:
While some complaints can be resolved over the telephone and require no further follow-up, others need more investigation. If a complaint cannot be immediately resolved by phone, the inspector attempts to locate and verify the alleged source by surveying and canvassing the suspected area. On verifying the source, the inspector conducts an inspection to verify the complaint and determine the cause of the air quality problem.
Often, by the time the inspector arrives on the scene, the odor has gone away, or the dust or smoke has disappeared. But even if the inspector cannot confirm your complaint, he or she will fill out a complete report. The District keeps a permanent record of all complaints investigated in Ventura County.
Complaints are classified as private and public. If the District deems a complaint a "private" nuisance, it means only a few people are affected. A neighbor-to-neighbor dispute is an example of this. In such cases, the affected party may need legal help to resolve the problem.
A Nuisance is a classified as "Public" as described in APCD Rule 51A person shall not discharge from any source whatsoever such quantities or air contaminants or other material which cause injury, detriment, nuisance or annoyance to any considerable number of persons or to the public or which endangers the comfort, repose, health or safety of any such persons or the public or which cause or have a natural tendency to cause injury or damage to business or property.
If the investigation of your complaint reveals either a "public" nuisance situation or a violation of APCD regulations, our inspectors can issue a Notice of Violation. This NOV is a written "ticket" informing a business or facility that it has failed to comply with an APCD rule or permit condition, or a state air pollution regulation or public nuisance law. Under the law, the business receiving the notice of violation can be fined each day, or part of the days, it is in violation.
After the investigation, the inspector may contact you to discuss findings and resolve the complaint. In severe cases, the APCD may go to court to stop the violation or even seek criminal prosecution.
How do I report an air quality complaint to the APCD?Please file your complaint by filling out the Complaint Form Fillable and emailing it to complaints@vcapcd.org. The complaint email inbox and phone messages are monitored regularly during normal business hours. To report a smoking vehicle, you can submit a complaint form online at https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/enf/complaints/svc2.htm
When you call the APCD complaint line to report an air quality complaint about a stationary source (like a factory or business) or any other type of complaint, please provide the following information:
*Note All personal and/or identifying information
about a complainant will be kept confidential, except
where otherwise required by law. You can make an
anonymous complaint, but the District encourages people
who make stationary source complaints to provide their
name, address and telephone number. This helps
inspectors verify complaint information and allows them
to inform complainants of the status of the
investigation.
Additional air quality complaint references
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