News Coverage
Valley soot builds up
Published June 29, 2004
The San Joaquin Valley has failed to meet yet another clean-air standard, this time for a newly regulated and lethal form of air pollution.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that the Valley violates the agency's standards for fine-particulate pollution -- the microscopic flecks of soot, dust and vapor that easily lodge in human lungs and can get into the bloodstream. The pollution is blamed for more
California deaths each year than AIDS, murders and car crashes combined.
Yet the fine-particulate pollution can be produced from just about any normal daily activity, from starting a campfire to plowing a field and driving on the highway. The pollution is so abundant in the Valley and so easily produced that it will be difficult to cut emissions in time to meet
the EPA's 2010 deadline, local and federal air officials said.
"Clearly, this is going to be a tremendous challenge. Although a lot of work has been done and is still being done to look at this issue, it's going to take a lot more to reach these health goals for reducing" the pollution, said Wayne Nastri, the administrator for the EPA region that includes
California.
The previously unregulated fine-particulate pollution is one of the Valley's most dangerous air-quality problems. The pollution has been widely blamed for premature deaths, heart disease, lung problems, asthma attacks and other chronic health problems.
A study of particulate pollution from the Environmental Working Group in 2001 estimated that fine-particulate pollution kills more than 9,300 Californians die each year, including about 251 San Joaquin County residents.
The tiny pieces of air pollution at issue are smaller than 2.5 microns wide. If 30 such particles were placed end to end, they would be about as wide as a human hair.
In the Valley, the primary sources of fine-particulate matter include dust kicked up from roads, farming operations, industrial sources and wood burning. Sewage-treatment plants, animal livestock ponds and wildfires are also sources of the pollution.
Prior to the new pollution rules, the EPA had focused only on air particles 10 microns wide. The EPA first proposed controls on the smaller particles in 1997, but lawsuits delayed enforcement of the new limits until this year, Nastri said.
Dave Mitchell, the planning manager for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, said that studies now under way would help local regulators decide how best to control emissions of the smaller particles.
The local air district has been planning for the new pollution limits and already has passed rules aimed at controlling lower levels of fine-particulate pollution.
Those rules include limits on when residents can use their wood-burning fireplaces. New rules go into effect Thursday that aim to cut back on dust from farms, Mitchell said.
It's unclear what other rules will be needed to lower the pollution levels further, he said.
The EPA declaration that the San Joaquin Valley is violating the new pollution limits should be finalized around November. After that, the local air district will get three years to develop a plan to reduce the pollution.
San Diego and Los Angeles are the only other California regions that violate the federal pollution limits, the EPA announced Monday.
