Supervisor in Kern Sees Green

For several years we have known that the worst air in the nation is often found infiltrating the lungs of local residents.

Today, in oil rich Kern County, a Supervisor, Michael Rubio, has moved the county to agree to purchase the cleanest, most fuel efficient cars possible and to quickly find ways to get the grossest polluters in the county fleet off the road.  Praise to the most high!!!

Will they be making plans for mass transit next?

The Ethanol Scam

Proposals are on the way for up to 4 ethanol refineries in Kern County.  Each would produce up to 60 million gallons of the alcohol per year.

With the topics of air pollution, oil depletion, war in the Middle East, and global warming featuring prominently in the news, many local politicians are salivating at the chance to get some ethanol plants built locally.  They think it's a win-win situation.

But, without the subsidies from the taxpayer, the ethanol production is not viable.  The producers get tariffs against imported ethanol from Brazil (50 cents per gallon) and tax credits on the building and running of the facilities (there is a 10 cent tax credit on every gallon produced).  The blenders get over 50 cents per gallon.  Also, the corn growers get farm subsidies for planting the corn but perhaps their biggest gain is in the higher prices paid for corn because of the subsidized demand for the ethanol.   The consumer, of course, pays for increased corn prices with higher food prices and we have already seen riots this past year in Mexico over higher tortilla prices.  This kind of food disruption world wide can only lead to increased immigration pressures on the U.S.

All of this taxpayer support for local ethanol production might be worth it if we were actually reducing our need for imported oil from the Middle East but we are not.  It is taking so much energy to grow the corn, ship it to California, make the ethanol, and distribute the ethanol, along with its waste products, that there is no positive gain in the net energy formula.  Ethanol production from corn is actually forcing us to use more fossil fuel simply for the benefit of those receiving the subsidies.  The biggest profiteers are Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill but the nation's farmers are happy to go along for the ride.  

This lopsided equation will not last forever but lucrative short term profits may keep driving the building of these plants in the short term.  Kern County may well be stuck with writing off its infrastructure support of these bankrupt factories after most of the current subsidies end in 2010.

The fact that local ethanol production will make our air pollution worse, and the recently discovered fact that the ethanol in our gas is already making our air pollution worse in the summertime, should also weigh heavily in the decision making process.

NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE

In the Bakersfield suburb of Shafter sits the Brown and Bryant toxic waste site number two.  You probably heard about Arvin's problem recently and EPA's promise to clean up their mess over the next 15 to 30 years.  A very similar site sits in Shafter, just upwind of Bakersfield.  It apparently has been used as a playground for the town's youth.

The pictures speak louder than words.  As of November 4, 2007, the warning signs were faded to oblivion; the gates were wide open;  and graffiti was everywhere amidst the contaminated soil, squirrel diggings, rusted drums, tanks, pipes, shredded plastic ground covers,  and the general ugliness of an abandoned war zone.

Within a few hundred yards of the site is a Head Start playground, a medical clinic, a youth center, residential homes, a business containing food which is packaged for regional schools, and other work places.  A city well sits on the site itself.

Besides the obvious threats to groundwater in the area there are other dangers.   Contaminated soil blows off the site and breezes carry gases away from the pesticide saturated ground.

After being informed of the problem, Shafter officials quickly put new padlocks on the gates and repaired the fence.  No one knows if and when a real cleanup of the site will take place.  After all, who really cares in Kern County about these kinds of issues?

Air District Declares Dust Problem Solved

This past year our health-conscious air district declared the San Joaquin Valley in compliance with federal standards for dust (PM 10).  This means they don't have to take any further steps to reduce dust in the valley.  They only have to maintain the status quo.  This is too bad because, as the photos show, we still have a dust problem.  Does anyone in Kern County not have to dust at least weekly?

Believe it or not, the technology to reduce the dust in each of these photos by at least 90% is available.

PM 2.5 Readings Off the Chart Again

After only 4 days of healthful air, PM 2.5 levels have skyrocketed to nearly 3 times the federally mandated level for good health. 

We recently finished an almost unprecendented spell of lousy air quality the first 8 days of November.  During that time an unscientific survey of death notices indicated a 40% rise in mortalities when compared to the two weeks of fairly good air we had around the middle of October.   The number of deaths was around 8.5 daily during the good days and about 12 on the bad.  It will be interesting to see if death rates increase again this week.

The pollution we are experiencing is from ammonium nitrate particles which form in the cool, moist air during our notorious days of air inversion over the valley floor.  The ammonia comes mostly from the happy cows and the NOx part of the formula is from engine exhaust.

I would suggest that Walmart and Target shut down their trucking on these days and the rest of us not go shopping except for essentials at a nearby store.  Unfortunately, we can't stop the cows from making their powdered milk for Asia.

Keep your children indoors.  Those 1 in 6 children with asthma in this valley especially need extra precautions.

Gas is Expensive and Pollutes our Air

A lot of gas and pollution could be saved if people with newer cars (cars with electronic fuel injection) would shut their engines off when they know they will need to idle for 30 seconds or longer.  Too many people still think a lot of gas is wasted when an engine restarts. 

It is commonly understood that idling a vehicle is about the same in gasoline use as driving the same vehicle at 30 mph.  

In Switzerland it is against the law to idle longer than 10 seconds.  They insist on shutting off their engines at stoplights.  In Canada there is a big campaign to reduce idling to 30 seconds or less. 

Maybe we can shut them down a little more at drive thrus.  Attached is some data on idling vs shutting down and restarting from the California Air Resources Board.

What a Waste of Valuable Real Estate

Bakersfield seems to have about 5 parking spots for every vehicle which is well above the national average of 3:1. 

Here is a suggestion bound to help our air pollution problem and make Bakersfield a little bit European:

Take out about 75% of the Valley Plaza parking lot and make a tree covered park-plaza filled with small stands for food and trinkets.  Let the remaining parking spaces shrink a little to increase their number about 10% and put up a horizontal barrier about 6 feet off the ground at all entrances so pickups and SUV's cannot enter.  Then get a natural gas powered bus fleet to pick up and deliver shoppers every 20 or 30 minutes from all the county's high school parking lots (Park-and-Ride) in the late afternoon and evenings.  On weekends they can run all day.

 

OK, you can breathe again.

After 160 straight hours of unhealthy air we got relief last night at 10 pm in the form of a weak low pressure system moving through.  This was some kind of record for bad air that the air district must be really puzzling about.

The problem was PM 2.5 made up of ammonia (thank all the factory dairies built here in the last 5 years) and vehicle exhaust (you're welcome).

I already saw some ag burning this morning.  I thought that was now illegal?

I appreciate everything the oil companies have done the past 10 or 15 years to reduce their pollution emissions.  But, they still have to use a huge amount of energy to produce the oil and the burning of this energy is not a small part of the emissions inventory by any means.  I think I heard about 20% of the energy in the oil is needed to produce and refine the product.  They might burn just about anything to make a lot of the steam they need.  They certainly produce steam from significant amounts of coal and tires in at least one part of the county which I think contains the Mt. Poso and Poso Creek fields.  All I really know is, according to friends, there seems to be a train load of coal delivered to Wasco every week which is trucked to semi-hidden cogeneration plants in the Poso hills.

What is confusing most to me are the produced water ponds scattered all over the place which evaporate the water that comes up with the oil.   Hondo Chemical was just in the news for receiving some of this water.  Along with the evaporating water there is most probably quite a lot of other substances also evaporating into our air.  This is not clean water as it contains hydrocarbons and other toxic chemicals in varying amounts.  I thought they could inject this water back where it came from.  I guess that is too expensive and they are allowed instead to simply let it go into our air.  No one seems to know what is mixed in this water that could end up in our air.  The air district claims the inventory is not done.  All I know is our air is used as a waste dump when we don't pay attention.  I don't like to subsidize any industry with my lungs.

There seems to be at least 800 acres of these evaporation ponds along Highway 33 between Lost Hills and McKittrick.  We could easily be getting a hundred tons per day of different pollutants into our air from these ponds as literally thousands of tons of water evaporates out of them every day.  It also percolates into the ground which cannot be a good thing.

After 7 straight days of lung-searing ugliness a little breeze is currently outside as a sign of proximal relief. 

I am getting tired of lethargic students with their complaints of headaches along with their hoarseness.  Also, maybe most of those laid-up, asthmatic, students of mine will be back in class tomorrow.

Perhaps we will soon get to light our fireplaces as well.   Maybe the oil fields can even light all their flares again.

A friend in Frazier Park sent pictures from this past Sunday of the haze from the valley creeping up the Grapevine.  We all know the view of brown haze going down into the valley from that area.  It must be pretty disturbing to see it rising up to greet you if you live up there.

The Frazier Park middle school shown in the second photo is within 50 feet of the freeway.  The kids are already in danger from freeway pollution like carbon monoxide and diesel soot.  The haze from the valley exacerbates the situation.

If you want to live in the mountains to escape the valley pollution, 4000 feet is obviously not high enough.

After a weekend of breathing horrible, lung searing,  contaminated air, I asked my students today how they felt.  Several in each class told me of the pain in their chest when they took in a deep breath.  One student mentioned how his grandfather, with emphysema, had suddenly taken a turn for the worse over the weekend and was now on his death bed. 

I checked my absentee rates.  The bad air hit last Thursday morning.  The previous three Fridays I had averaged a 12% absentee rate from my 140 students.  Last Friday there was a 44% increase in absences to over 17%.  I don't think it is a coincidence between the bad air and the elevated absenteeism.  I am pretty sure the work places around the county would have similar problems.

Since the elevated pollution is continuing this week I suggested to the school's PE department that it would be better to limit outdoor exercise for a couple days.  It sounds like this Thursday or Friday we may get a reprieve in the high pressure and this stuff might blow out for a day or two.  Then again, when the air turns cooler and the fog forms, the air can accumulate even higher levels of the ammonium nitrate particles causing most of our problem.

We have now had three straight days of extremely unhealthy air.  The air monitor readings in Bakersfield were 3 times higher than the safe level at 11 pm last night.  This is a county wide problem.  It is not just in Arvin.

A monitor reading of 35 is considered healthy.  We have averaged well over 80 for the past 72 hours.  We are currently at RED on the air quality index.

This is a state of emergency for people with respiratory problems.  They must stay indoors.  Do yourself and everyone else a favor and don't go anywhere in a vehicle unless absolutely necessary.

Crisis health centers are currently being overwhelmed with patients struggling to get some air into their lungs and others with feelings of intense pain and tightness in their chests.
  
Fortunately,  today is Sunday and many people will stay at home.  Tomorrow we will see high rates of absences at schools and workplaces.