You could be saying goodbye to your old-style gasoline can, your smoky lawn mower and oil- based paint as a result of tougher clean-air rules that took effect Thursday.

Ohio's smokestack industries and coal-burning power plants - some of the dirtiest in the nation - could be forced to install expensive new emission controls.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to reduce ground-level ozone, a colorless air pollutant that irritates lungs, causes headaches, coughing and wheezing and damages crops.

The EPA announced Thursday that 33 counties in Ohio and some or all of 440 counties in 30 other states do not meet the new, more stringent federal health standards for ground-level ozone. So, new pollution controls are coming.

Originally proposed by the Clinton administration in 1997, the new standards - challenged by trade associations, environmental groups and states, including Ohio - took effect after a long court fight.

The eight counties in Northeast Ohio, which has the worst air pollution in the state, will have six years to improve ground-level ozone pollution. The 25 other Ohio counties have five years.

The Ohio EPA, which has been monitoring ground-level ozone for years, expected the federal designations. But now, a clock is running for the state to address the problem.

"This is the day of reckoning," said Staci Putney, clean-air spokeswoman for the Ohio Environmental Council, a Columbus-based watchdog group. "We found out the standards are not being met and the public's health is at risk."

"Ohio cannot avoid the issue of poor air quality any longer," Putney said. "Inhalers are not the solution. Cleaner air is the solution."

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