![]() “The biggest pollution source right now that’s holding us back is the nitrogen oxide emissions from the mobile sources that make up 85% of the pollution,” he adds. Now, Sadredin argues, it is up to the state of California’s Air Resources Board to better regulate mobile pollution sources – the cars, diesel trucks and freight trains – that are under the state’s purview. These improvements have come through working with farmers to reduce the burning of agricultural waste, funding trade-ins for older farm equipment, and imposing requirements for cleaner burning furnaces and fireplaces, among other measures. “Over the last 25 years, air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley – from the stationary sources we regulate – has been reduced by over 80% with some of the toughest air regulations in place anywhere in the nation,” says Seyed Sadredin, the air district’s executive director.Įmissions from agriculture, industry, rail freight and road traffic together create one of the US’s worst concentrations of air pollution. The worst air in the United States may soon be getting worse.īut the authority tasked with addressing the region’s air quality issues, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, does not seem too concerned, suggesting it has done just about all it can to alleviate the problem. ![]() “The potential of us going backwards 50 or 60 years in air pollution control and mitigation is very scary,” says Aguirre. He says progress has been slow in the San Joaquin Valley, a conservative part of the state that’s heavily influenced by agricultural and oil industry interests, and the Trump administration could further limit that progress. Gustavo Aguirre Jr is a prominent local activist who works on environmental justice issues in many of the small, underserved and impoverished farming communities that surround Bakersfield. Now the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, and his appointment of an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head in Scott Pruitt who is actively opposed air quality regulations, has many worried that the small but steady improvements to the area’s air quality may all be undone. Though some improvements have been made in recent years through more stringent air quality standards, cleaner burning engines and efficient industrial machinery, the region continues to struggle with poor air quality and the health problems it brings. The potential of us going backwards 50 or 60 years in air pollution control and mitigation is very scary Gustavo Aguirre Jr A 2006 study found the health impacts of the region’s air pollution cost the southern section of the Central Valley, known as the San Joaquin, an estimated $3bn (£2.4bn) – or about $1,000 per person per year in a region where about a quarter of the population is in poverty. Of the wider metro area’s 875,000 people, about 70,000 are said to have asthma, 40,000 cardiovascular disease, and 27,000 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Bakersfield’s average reading in one 24-hour period in late January was 40.5 micrograms per cubic metre over the mountains in somewhat smoggy Los Angeles, that number averages about 12.Ībout 70,000 people are said to have asthma in Bakersfield. The WHO’s latest ambient air pollution database ranks nearby Visalia-Porterville worst in the US. One of the main indicators of poor air quality is the level of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the air. The American Lung Association’s State of the Air 2016 report found the city’s air to be the worst in the United States for short-term and year-round particle pollution, and the second worst for ozone pollution. Freight trains hauling oil rumble through the city, and its many refineries billow smoke into the air.īakersfield and surrounding Kern County are the unlucky nexus of this pollution. Massive warehouses and distribution centres on the outskirts of town bring in diesel trucks day and night from Interstate 5, the major north-south route that runs from Canada to Mexico (Los Angeles is about 100 miles to the south). Dairies populated by hundreds of thousands of cows are scattered throughout the region, and their smell, too, is hard to miss. Oil fields make up most of the view from the top of the bluffs, and the scent of petroleum is often detectable around the city. ![]() Emissions from agriculture, industry, rail freight and road traffic together create one of the country’s worst concentrations of air pollution – a condition exacerbated by geographic and climatic conditions that trap dry, dirty air over this southern section of Central Valley like the lid over a pot. But clear days don’t happen all that often in Bakersfield.
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