# Smog tunnels? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 4, 2006, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smog-tunnels/379060 "2006-11-04T03:39:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smog-tunnels/379060/1 "2006-11-04T03:39:45Z")
I recall reading, many years ago, about a proposal to bore tunnels through the San Gabriel mountains from the LA Basin to the Mojave Desert and install huge fans to exhaust the smog away from Los Angeles. I think it was during the 50’s. Here’s a simple [picture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Basin). Ever hear of such a thing? Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smog-tunnels/379060/2 "2006-11-04T03:50:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \> September 24, 2005 > \> \> > \> \> DECADES AGO, a gadfly candidate for Los Angeles mayor promoted a quick fix > \> \> for smog: Drill tunnels through the San Gabriel Mountains and use giant > \> \> fans to blow the dirty air out the other side. > **[Cole v. Cote Round Last Observations](http://exurbannation.blogspot.com/2005/10/cole-v-cote-round-last-observations.html)** > > A few additional mostly lexigraphical observations. \> No love for tunnels \> By Rick Cole \> \> September 24, 2005 \> \> \> \> DECADES AGO, a gadfl... ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smog-tunnels/379060/3 "2006-11-04T03:58:14Z")
[That was Sam Given, of Given Engineering in 1954](http://www.laweekly.com/index.php?option=com_lawcontent&task=view&id=8127): > [@](#): > > Given Engineering, on the other hand, understood the magnitude — and science — of the problem, and had sufficient resources, plus nerve, to put forth an appropriately outsize answer. The defense contractor, in fact, cooked up the whopper, the grandest scheme ever promulgated to whisk away the bourbon-hued muck that blanketed the city and shrouded the mountains, whole. Even with hindsight, you’ve got to admire the audacity of the idea: Build a sewer system for smog. Install 160 miles of 20-foot diameter, watertight, gas-proof concrete conduit connected to vents in the mountains high above the flatlands. Giant fans would push the smog at 100 mph through the pipes and shoot it “harmlessly into the atmosphere above the inversion layer.” > > In December 1954, Sam Given delivered the “air sanitation plan” to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Bound in buff-colored boards, with a mahogany-colored binding — and replete with a five-foot-long foldout engineering diagram — the plan would cost between $200 million and $300 million and be completed by 1960. Given explained, with the confidence of Eisenhower-era American know-how and the Spartan assurance of unassailable truth, that the pipeline “does not appear to us… to be any more difficult to accomplish than… planning, designing and installing our massive and effective sanitary sewer system.” > > The same old glitch comes up, however. On a hot day, it was calculated back then that Los Angeles had a mass of contaminated air weighing 250 million tons. Thirty-one billion kilowatt hours of electrical energy would be needed to move the air just 30 miles away. At the time, that would have been about a quarter of the nation’s electrical output. Apparently, the more meretricious, the more plausible the proponents believed their idea to be. The devil, as they say, is in the details. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smog-tunnels/379060/4 "2006-11-04T04:48:23Z")
LA native here. Yup I recall hearing about it from my parents in the 1950s. My parents, and engineer and a genius didn’t think much of the plan. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smog-tunnels/379060/5 "2006-11-04T17:03:03Z")
[QUOTE=Fear Itself] [That was Sam Given, of Given Engineering in 1954](http://www.laweekly.com/index.php?option=com_lawcontent&task=view&id=8127):The devil, as they say, is in the details. [/QUOTE] Vast project, based on halve vast idea. Cost analysis sinks the ship. In other words the job isn’t done till the paper work is finished, i.e. Cost analysis for worst case scenario. See Atmospheric Cold Megawatts proposal for generating power cheaply for another wild proposal. Download Patent at: \<[http://www.coldenergy.com/technology.htm>](http://www.coldenergy.com/technology.htm>); ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smog-tunnels/379060/6 "2006-11-04T17:45:36Z")
Thanks for the info. Very interesting. We may chuckle, rightfully so, but crazier ideas have come to fruition. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![figure9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f0a364/32.png) [@figure9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/figure9)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smog-tunnels/379060/7 "2006-11-04T20:02:33Z")
I first heard about this watching the ‘Beverly Hillbillies’. Some con man was trying to scam the Clampets out of ther money. I thought it was just a joke, the idea seemed so idiotic it was funny. People actually took this seriously? Wow! ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smog-tunnels/379060/8 "2006-11-04T21:28:55Z")
[QUOTE=figure9] I first heard about this watching the ‘Beverly Hillbillies’. Some con man was trying to scam the Clampets out of ther money. I thought it was just a joke, the idea seemed so idiotic it was funny. People actually took this seriously? Wow! [/QUOTE] If you had lived there at the time, you might be more understanding. Desperation does not breed caution. It’s a lot better now. Speaking of which, how goes the effort to clean up the lakes? ---
**Author:** ![figure9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f0a364/32.png) [@figure9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/figure9)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2006, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smog-tunnels/379060/9 "2006-11-05T06:05:18Z")
**mangeorge** Sorry if my reply seemed like a slam. I was about 15 when I saw that episode. At that time of my life I knew everything. I have gotten much less intelligent as I have gotten older and realized that I don’t know everything. Given the conditions I can understand why people would be anxious to try just about anything. Again I am sorry, I did not intend to come across as a total #2$%@! About the clean up effort. I can’t speak for all the Great Lakes but L. Michigan is definately cleaner now. A Russian freighter brought over the zebra muscle in its ballast water. The muscle has cleaned up the lake so well that there is very little food for the fish. Of course that is just the overall state of the lake. Near the beaches there is a problem in the summer. People leave food and trash on the beach which attracts scavengers (Segulls and pigeons mainly). The scavengers leave their droppings on the beach and when it rains all the droppings end up in the lake. So we have high fecal bacteria counts and beaches get closed, or at least that is what the papers say. ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2006, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smog-tunnels/379060/10 "2006-11-05T09:03:36Z")
I heard about something like that, but the fans are a new one to me. My understanding was that given an ingress of air below, the smog would dissipate. One could probably put fans in the tunnels and generate electricity. I’m always amused when I see how people try to ventilate rooms, they invariably forget that if you provide a lower source of cold air, the hot air rises.