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As Milk Prices Rise Look for a Corresponding Increase in Local Air Pollution Levels
Of course, there will be a lag period, but milk prices have gone back to average levels for the past 5 years and dairy herds will begin to increase again after massive culling the past 12 months.
One...
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Comments [0] - Views [25]
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The air is bad enough yesterday and today to cancel football and cross country practice. It is over 100 degrees and the ground level ozone levels are on the line between unhealthy and very unhealthy. If there were school flags indicating air quality in Kern County they would be either...
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Comments [7] - Views [110]
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Ridiculous Letter to the Editor
Mike Polyniak, in a recently published Letter to the Editor , claims that people spoke out inappropriately at the last Air District Meeting. He even accuses the few who spoke in Spanish of treason.
This dude needs a lesson in...
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Comments [12] - Views [62]
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Can't Be Proven
The tobacco companies tried for years to fight evidence that showed tobacco was harmful to health. They hired doctors and lawyers to say that smoking a cigarette never killed anyone. Of course they were technically correct but they were also guilty of deceiving the...
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Comments [2] - Views [43]
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Interesting Research for Kern County
Since 2001, Kern County has seen an increase of over 100,000 dairy animals due to our supervisors agreeing to give out dozens of dairy permits without environmental review in the late 1990's. Has this had any effect on infant...
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Comments [10] - Views [142]
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Over Ninety Percent Local
According to the air district, which is required to do extensive studies on the matter, over ninety percent of our local air pollution problem in Kern County is not transported from outside the region. Excuses are made by the uninformed that we get...
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Comments [5] - Views [80]
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Gunk in Air is Awful this Week
The dairies must be pumping their lagoons again. They tend to do that this time of year. The ammonia gases emitted from these lagoons is tremendous. Of course, without car and truck exhaust the ammonia would be relatively harmless. ...
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Comments [5] - Views [76]
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Garden Solves Problems
I don't mean to brag but this photo of my small garden taken this morning says a thousand words.
Green leaf gardens grow their best in this valley in the Fall. We have been eating nightly salads from this small 4 x 8 foot garden for 3 weeks already. ...
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Comments [4] - Views [56]
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Beautiful Skies?
We make the brown haze we live in. Let there be no doubt. We also need to take personal responsibility for it as valley residents and businesses. It is costing us more in health related problems than it would cost to clean up. ...
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Comments [5] - Views [48]
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Appeals Court Rules In Favor of Local Group
The Association of Irritated Residents, a local air quality group, has prevailed over the San Joaquin Valley Air District. They got the state appeals court to rule in their favor regarding the inadequacy of a rule regulating large dairies...
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Comments [0] - Views [26]
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Air District Not Doing Job
We had promises of steady and continued improvement two years ago. We also had promises of attainment of the federal health standard by 2024 which was too long in many peoples' minds. They didn't tell us our air would actually get worse before it...
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Comments [2] - Views [72]
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Corn Ethanol Wastes Billions
The USDA says that increased biofuel production (the product we make in the US when we turn corn into ethanol), is responsible for about 20 % of the rise in food costs this past year. Food costs have gone up at least 5 % (probably more). Therefore,...
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Comments [0] - Views [67]
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In Case Anyone Missed It
Poor air quality kills. People die sooner when the air is bad.
Here's the latest.
From the American Lung Association
Top Ten U.S. Cities Most Polluted by Short-Term Particle Pollution:
1) Pittsburgh, Pa.
2) Los Angeles/Long...
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Comments [0] - Views [61]
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They Do Less Rather Than More
You would think improving the health of residents would be the top priority for a health agency like the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. No, saving businesses money is their goal.
Air board OKs new plan
Activists say strategy to...
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Comments [2] - Views [46]
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Foolishness In Wasco Challenged
Local Environmental Group files suit against Proposed Wasco Ethanol Plant
(KBAK video on lawsuit above)
When the subsidies are gone this stupidity will stop. Corn is now $6.00 per bushel. One bushel of corn will produce 2.5 gallons of ethanol...
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Comments [10] - Views [111]
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Idling Longer Than 5 Minutes is Illegal
The new 5 minute idling rule is not being enforced. Yesterday morning a dozen trucks were observed idling for much longer periods of time at the Flying J truck stop on Merced and Hwy 99. My friend tells me several trucks are still idling all...
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Comments [7] - Views [94]
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Studies have already found that tiny particulate pollution in Kern's air is bad for your heart and lungs but new research has found it may be bad for the brain, too.
The Riverside Press-Enterprise reports that a UC Irvine study found mice exposed to the pollution in Riverside and Los Angeles...
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Comments [11] - Views [128]
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We Obviously Have Lots of Money
The proposed military budget for 2009 is $515 billion. That is at least as high as the rest of the world's combined military spending. It doesn't even count what we are spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nor does it count the military share of the...
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Comments [0] - Views [24]
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She Doesn't Care For Activist Senator
Marylee prefers Ashburn's passive complaining to Florez' progressive action as a behavioral guide for legislators.
She is wrong when she says the air board was unanimous in extending the clean-air deadline. After being shown that it was...
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Comments [5] - Views [91]
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Plants in Wasco, Famoso, Delano, Pixley, Hanford, and Goshen are Ridiculous
The following fact sheet, compiled from many sources, tries to summarize why making ethanol from corn is just about one of the dumbest ways to minimize foreign oil imports and reduce greenhouse gases we...
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Comments [3] - Views [146]
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Is Our Pollution Insignificant?
Air pollution director compares air of Bakersfield, Beijing...
Nice of Seyed to remind us how lucky we are that people like him are working on our air quality problems. Things are so much worse in other countries. The fact that we are number...
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Comments [1] - Views [29]
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Bush EPA Tells California To Calm Down
After California requested permission to implement stricter tailpipe emission standards than required by the EPA they were refused.
The EPA said it wasn't necessary because they were implementing just as strict new standards which would be...
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Comments [2] - Views [35]
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Law Now Applies to all Trucks
Beginning January 1, 2008, in the State of California, all trucks above 5 tons gross weight will no longer be allowed to idle longer than 5 minutes unless they are stuck in traffic. There were already state laws against excessive idling but an important...
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A New Proposal to Burn Sludge in Kern County Won't Help Much of Anything
An international company named Liberty Energy, or something like that, would like to take the 750,000 tons of sewage sludge coming to Lost Hills annually from LA and burn it for energy production instead of composting...
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But You Don't Have to Leave Kern County
It is perhaps ironic that you can move closer to some of the factory dairies in Kern County and breathe cleaner air.
The Air Resources Board has historical data on air quality which was recently published in an easy to read format in the Fresno...
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Comments [1] - Views [52]
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Particulate Pollution Worst Around Midnight
Christmas carolers and pub crawlers with asthma or heart problems should stay out of the midnight air these days. The ammonium nitrate levels are most often peaking around the witching hour during the winter season. In Fresno, on...
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Comments [0] - Views [55]
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Crime and Air Pollution are Perceived as Major Kern Problems
A 2007 survey taken by the Kern Council of Governments has already been reported in the news but is worth looking at again every once in awhile.
82% of respondents said crime was a major local problem. 78% said the same...
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Comments [1] - Views [48]
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Judge Rules In Favor of Tailpipe Emission Reductions
In Fresno on Wednesday a federal judge said California has the right to regulate tailpipe emissions in regard to global warming gases.
This means we will get somewhat cleaner air in the future as car manufacturers will now have to abide...
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Comments [2] - Views [54]
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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...
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Comments [1] - Views [66]
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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...
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Comments [3] - Views [87]
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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...
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Comments [2] - Views [94]
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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...
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Comments [2] - Views [51]
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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...
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Comments [2] - Views [72]
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Last year, Bakersfield city officials decided to create a new image for Bakersfield. An image of a better quality of life, a better place to live. And so they created a new motto that goes something like this: "Bakersfield: Life as it Should Be." Here's...
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Comments [1] - Views [140]
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