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"title": "California Adopts Tougher Methane Rule for Landfills to Curb Planetary Warming",
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"content": "\u003cp>Your trash, or the place where it ends up, is also one of the most serious contributors to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/global-warming\">global warming\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After livestock, landfills are the second-largest source of methane emissions in California, responsible for more than 20% of the state’s output. That’s why the California Air Resources Board took action on Thursday to monitor and capture the landfill’s gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is generated from the breakdown of waste. Even though it’s a short-lived climate pollutant compared to long-lasting carbon dioxide, it severely exacerbates human-caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/landfill-methane-regulation\">new rules\u003c/a> will eventually require landfill operators to take action when a \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/californias-methane-satellite-helps-stop-10-large-leaks\">satellite\u003c/a> or airplane detects a methane leak, improve routine leak monitoring and reporting and mandate stronger action on recurring issues. The protections will add to a suite of regulations the state passed in 2010, which made California the first state to develop stricter standards than the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is another example of California’s leadership in reducing emissions and harmful climate-warming pollutants across all sources. With these updates, California will be able to more efficiently and effectively monitor methane sources to detect and remedy leaks quickly,” CARB Chair \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/about/leadership/lauren-sanchez\">Lauren Sanchez said \u003c/a>in a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board reported that the state’s methane satellite, which passes by four to five times a week, has helped stop 10 large leaks since May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999362\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999362\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The landfill at 850 Singleton Road in San José, California, on Sept. 6, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We believe that many operators would be interested in adopting these technologies to reduce the need for costly labor, especially as the number of mature technologies increases over time,” said air resources engineer Quinn Langfitt, who introduced the regulator’s proposal at a public hearing on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes, which will impact 188 landfills in the state, are part of meeting the state’s goal to reduce methane emissions by 40% below 2013 levels by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said the new rules could reduce landfill emissions by 427,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. They would create $34 million in social benefits and cost landfills around $12 million, with the largest bearing the brunt of the price tag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent report backed up the agency’s findings: By 2050, landfill emissions could be reduced by more than half and up to 64% by the end of the century, according to \u003ca href=\"https://industriouslabs.org/archive/press-release-common-sense-standards-can-deliver-cleaner-air-cut-california-landfill-methane\">a March analysis\u003c/a> by Industrious Labs. The group noted that California landfills emit 7.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent of methane annually, which has “the same climate impact as driving 1.7 million cars for one year.”[aside postID=news_12061054 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/CHSugarCrockettGetty.jpg']But even though the board passed the new rules, they won’t go into effect immediately; staff will need to address a slew of clarifying questions raised by the public and board members during the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CARB board member Diane Takvorian supported the rule but pushed for a public-facing dashboard to show when and where emissions plumes are detected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are asking for basic information,” Takvorian said, noting that technology is moving fast and that people need information now, not in years. She and others recommended an 18-month technology review after the rule goes into effect. They also suggested that the state and landfills share any data with the public as soon as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have the data, we should share it,” board member Hector De La Torre said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John Kennedy, senior policy advocate for the Rural County Representatives of California, said he is “supportive of efforts to reduce emissions.” His group represents more than two-thirds of the landfills to which the standards would apply. Kennedy wants to ensure that the implementation is feasible for local governments “while protecting the communities that are close to those landfills.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson from Waste Management, which does business as WM, representing facilities across the state, thanked staff for the updated plan, but said he hopes they will work with the industry on site-specific conditions, which of the new rules are “necessary and useful to diagnose conditions,” and a framework for using alternative monitoring technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1947347\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1925px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1947347\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/GettyImages-2154411-e1568322782842.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1925\" height=\"1258\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A worker watches as aluminum cans are emptied into a bailer at the Norcal Waste recycling facility on July 11, 2003, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Multiple residents from the Los Angeles community of Val Verde attended the meeting. They said they have suffered because of widespread noxious odors and hazardous gas emissions from the \u003ca href=\"https://calepa.ca.gov/chiquita-canyon-response/\">Chiquita Canyon Landfill\u003c/a> in recent years. Brandi Howse, who spoke during public comment, said she has lived about 1,000 feet from the landfill for 27 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Howse said she has experienced clouds of methane and other gases at her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You become dizzy, disoriented, nauseous, you get headaches, burning sinuses and bloody noses,” Howse said. “We are left to be concerned with long-term effects. I know that myself and my neighbors to my left and my right have all had cancer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Community members from the Kern County community of Avenal approached the podium to say that the landfill in their community is causing health concerns like cancer and people are leaving the town because of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The smell is really bad,” said Leticia Luna, who moved to Avenal 15 years ago. “People are leaving our community because their homes are not safe, and when they leave, they find it difficult to sell because we live very close to the landfill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many groups applauded the new rule, \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-williams-36820528b/\">Jane Williams\u003c/a>, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics, said it is a “real first step,” and that CARB needs even stronger rules to prevent fires and large emission leaks at landfills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Your trash, or the place where it ends up, is also one of the most serious contributors to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/global-warming\">global warming\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After livestock, landfills are the second-largest source of methane emissions in California, responsible for more than 20% of the state’s output. That’s why the California Air Resources Board took action on Thursday to monitor and capture the landfill’s gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is generated from the breakdown of waste. Even though it’s a short-lived climate pollutant compared to long-lasting carbon dioxide, it severely exacerbates human-caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/landfill-methane-regulation\">new rules\u003c/a> will eventually require landfill operators to take action when a \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/californias-methane-satellite-helps-stop-10-large-leaks\">satellite\u003c/a> or airplane detects a methane leak, improve routine leak monitoring and reporting and mandate stronger action on recurring issues. The protections will add to a suite of regulations the state passed in 2010, which made California the first state to develop stricter standards than the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is another example of California’s leadership in reducing emissions and harmful climate-warming pollutants across all sources. With these updates, California will be able to more efficiently and effectively monitor methane sources to detect and remedy leaks quickly,” CARB Chair \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/about/leadership/lauren-sanchez\">Lauren Sanchez said \u003c/a>in a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board reported that the state’s methane satellite, which passes by four to five times a week, has helped stop 10 large leaks since May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1999362\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1999362\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/11/230906-850-SINGLETON-RD-MD-09_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The landfill at 850 Singleton Road in San José, California, on Sept. 6, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We believe that many operators would be interested in adopting these technologies to reduce the need for costly labor, especially as the number of mature technologies increases over time,” said air resources engineer Quinn Langfitt, who introduced the regulator’s proposal at a public hearing on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The changes, which will impact 188 landfills in the state, are part of meeting the state’s goal to reduce methane emissions by 40% below 2013 levels by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials said the new rules could reduce landfill emissions by 427,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. They would create $34 million in social benefits and cost landfills around $12 million, with the largest bearing the brunt of the price tag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent report backed up the agency’s findings: By 2050, landfill emissions could be reduced by more than half and up to 64% by the end of the century, according to \u003ca href=\"https://industriouslabs.org/archive/press-release-common-sense-standards-can-deliver-cleaner-air-cut-california-landfill-methane\">a March analysis\u003c/a> by Industrious Labs. The group noted that California landfills emit 7.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent of methane annually, which has “the same climate impact as driving 1.7 million cars for one year.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But even though the board passed the new rules, they won’t go into effect immediately; staff will need to address a slew of clarifying questions raised by the public and board members during the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CARB board member Diane Takvorian supported the rule but pushed for a public-facing dashboard to show when and where emissions plumes are detected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are asking for basic information,” Takvorian said, noting that technology is moving fast and that people need information now, not in years. She and others recommended an 18-month technology review after the rule goes into effect. They also suggested that the state and landfills share any data with the public as soon as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have the data, we should share it,” board member Hector De La Torre said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John Kennedy, senior policy advocate for the Rural County Representatives of California, said he is “supportive of efforts to reduce emissions.” His group represents more than two-thirds of the landfills to which the standards would apply. Kennedy wants to ensure that the implementation is feasible for local governments “while protecting the communities that are close to those landfills.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson from Waste Management, which does business as WM, representing facilities across the state, thanked staff for the updated plan, but said he hopes they will work with the industry on site-specific conditions, which of the new rules are “necessary and useful to diagnose conditions,” and a framework for using alternative monitoring technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1947347\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1925px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1947347\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/GettyImages-2154411-e1568322782842.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1925\" height=\"1258\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A worker watches as aluminum cans are emptied into a bailer at the Norcal Waste recycling facility on July 11, 2003, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Multiple residents from the Los Angeles community of Val Verde attended the meeting. They said they have suffered because of widespread noxious odors and hazardous gas emissions from the \u003ca href=\"https://calepa.ca.gov/chiquita-canyon-response/\">Chiquita Canyon Landfill\u003c/a> in recent years. Brandi Howse, who spoke during public comment, said she has lived about 1,000 feet from the landfill for 27 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Howse said she has experienced clouds of methane and other gases at her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You become dizzy, disoriented, nauseous, you get headaches, burning sinuses and bloody noses,” Howse said. “We are left to be concerned with long-term effects. I know that myself and my neighbors to my left and my right have all had cancer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Community members from the Kern County community of Avenal approached the podium to say that the landfill in their community is causing health concerns like cancer and people are leaving the town because of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The smell is really bad,” said Leticia Luna, who moved to Avenal 15 years ago. “People are leaving our community because their homes are not safe, and when they leave, they find it difficult to sell because we live very close to the landfill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many groups applauded the new rule, \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-williams-36820528b/\">Jane Williams\u003c/a>, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics, said it is a “real first step,” and that CARB needs even stronger rules to prevent fires and large emission leaks at landfills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "a-new-sonoma-facility-wants-to-recycle-plastics-residents-are-pushing-back",
"title": "A New Sonoma Facility Wants to Recycle Plastics. Residents Are Pushing Back",
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"content": "\u003cp>Business leaders of a new facility in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/rohnert-park\">Rohnert Park\u003c/a> who have promised to divert plastic waste from landfills have found themselves at the center of a controversy, with residents concerned the operation will cause environmental harm, pose safety hazards and impact property values.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neighbors opposed to the project have garnered thousands of signatures on an \u003ca href=\"https://www.change.org/p/demanding-priority-of-public-safety-and-health-halt-permitting-plastic-pyrolysis-facility?\">online petition\u003c/a> to halt the permitting of the facility, which they plan to deliver to the government and officials with the Bay Area Air District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Resynergi facility sits in the heart of SOMO Village, a new construction, sustainability-focused mixed-use development for businesses, homes and a high school. The recycler is currently awaiting permit approval from the Air District in order to begin operating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in an effort to stall that approval, residents have packed city council and school board meetings, speaking out with their concerns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rohnert Park will suddenly have the reputation of being the garbage dump of Sonoma County,” resident James Griffin said during a recent city council meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents of students who attend Credo High School, which is located near the facility, said at the same meeting that they are worried about their kids’ health and safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998293\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998293\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250702-JosephHuffakerTrial-18-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250702-JosephHuffakerTrial-18-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250702-JosephHuffakerTrial-18-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250702-JosephHuffakerTrial-18-BL_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250702-JosephHuffakerTrial-18-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign for Rohnert Park on Commerce Boulevard in Rohnert Park on July 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Many of us will take our kids out of that very fabulous school and very fabulous environment due to the unnecessary risk that’s there if it opens,” parent Wowlvenn Seward-Katzmiller said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the pushback, Resynergi officials have been hosting open houses for the community to tour the facility and learn more about the recycling process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve been working really hard to educate people that we don’t do smoke stacks,” Resynergi co-founder and CEO Brian Bauer said. “We’re actually a very clean process because we follow real closely the air district and the city fire department and all the different groups that regulate this type of thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The process Resynergi uses to recycle plastic is called pyrolysis, which involves heating plastic without the use of oxygen. Bauer said there are byproducts of that process, including volatile organic compounds, which can cause cancer, but that they are minimal.[aside postID=science_1998209 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/GettyImages-1271601364.jpg']“Those VOCs coming out of our system are about the equivalent to one passenger car driving down the road,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bauer also said the chance for an explosion at the facility is extremely low.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At any one time, we have very little gases in our system,” he said. “It would be equivalent to camping stove propane. That’s your potential of ignition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, local and state regulators are investigating three sites where Resynergi conducted business in the last several years — including the SOMO Village facility. Air district regulators alleged the company did not have proper permits at these locations, \u003ca href=\"https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/north-bay/resynergi-regulatory-permits-recycling/?\">according to a report in The Press Democrat\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lynda Hopkins, chair of the Air District’s board, told KQED the agency issued a violation against the company for moving forward “with construction of the unit without actually having a construction permit in hand. [The facility] is being closely tracked by a variety of different government agencies in Sonoma County and beyond.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The environmental group California Communities Against Toxics has also filed an \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/2025-08-13-LBauer-60-NoticeResynergifx.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">intent to sue Resynergi\u003c/a> over permit issues, claiming the company’s recycling operations violated the Clean Air Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Bauer denied that claim and said they have not started operating at that location yet, and there is no basis for the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, the Air District delayed its approval of \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/engineering/public-notices/2025/704470/fid203504_nsr_704470_eval_071825-pdf.pdf?rev=11ecccc3400042a09b30cd5817e00211&sc_lang=en\">Resynergi’s permit\u003c/a> in order to give the public more time to submit comments. The deadline is now Oct. 3.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve had a lot of folks coming to me trying to get me to essentially put a stop to the permitting process,” Hopkins said. “As long as a project is in compliance with our rules, it will move forward through the permitting process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Rohnert Park residents worry the new Resynergi plastic recycling facility will degrade air quality and pose safety concerns.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Business leaders of a new facility in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/rohnert-park\">Rohnert Park\u003c/a> who have promised to divert plastic waste from landfills have found themselves at the center of a controversy, with residents concerned the operation will cause environmental harm, pose safety hazards and impact property values.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neighbors opposed to the project have garnered thousands of signatures on an \u003ca href=\"https://www.change.org/p/demanding-priority-of-public-safety-and-health-halt-permitting-plastic-pyrolysis-facility?\">online petition\u003c/a> to halt the permitting of the facility, which they plan to deliver to the government and officials with the Bay Area Air District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Resynergi facility sits in the heart of SOMO Village, a new construction, sustainability-focused mixed-use development for businesses, homes and a high school. The recycler is currently awaiting permit approval from the Air District in order to begin operating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in an effort to stall that approval, residents have packed city council and school board meetings, speaking out with their concerns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rohnert Park will suddenly have the reputation of being the garbage dump of Sonoma County,” resident James Griffin said during a recent city council meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents of students who attend Credo High School, which is located near the facility, said at the same meeting that they are worried about their kids’ health and safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1998293\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1998293\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250702-JosephHuffakerTrial-18-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250702-JosephHuffakerTrial-18-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250702-JosephHuffakerTrial-18-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250702-JosephHuffakerTrial-18-BL_qed-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/250702-JosephHuffakerTrial-18-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign for Rohnert Park on Commerce Boulevard in Rohnert Park on July 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Many of us will take our kids out of that very fabulous school and very fabulous environment due to the unnecessary risk that’s there if it opens,” parent Wowlvenn Seward-Katzmiller said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the pushback, Resynergi officials have been hosting open houses for the community to tour the facility and learn more about the recycling process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve been working really hard to educate people that we don’t do smoke stacks,” Resynergi co-founder and CEO Brian Bauer said. “We’re actually a very clean process because we follow real closely the air district and the city fire department and all the different groups that regulate this type of thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The process Resynergi uses to recycle plastic is called pyrolysis, which involves heating plastic without the use of oxygen. Bauer said there are byproducts of that process, including volatile organic compounds, which can cause cancer, but that they are minimal.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Those VOCs coming out of our system are about the equivalent to one passenger car driving down the road,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bauer also said the chance for an explosion at the facility is extremely low.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At any one time, we have very little gases in our system,” he said. “It would be equivalent to camping stove propane. That’s your potential of ignition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, local and state regulators are investigating three sites where Resynergi conducted business in the last several years — including the SOMO Village facility. Air district regulators alleged the company did not have proper permits at these locations, \u003ca href=\"https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/north-bay/resynergi-regulatory-permits-recycling/?\">according to a report in The Press Democrat\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lynda Hopkins, chair of the Air District’s board, told KQED the agency issued a violation against the company for moving forward “with construction of the unit without actually having a construction permit in hand. [The facility] is being closely tracked by a variety of different government agencies in Sonoma County and beyond.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The environmental group California Communities Against Toxics has also filed an \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/2025-08-13-LBauer-60-NoticeResynergifx.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">intent to sue Resynergi\u003c/a> over permit issues, claiming the company’s recycling operations violated the Clean Air Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Bauer denied that claim and said they have not started operating at that location yet, and there is no basis for the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, the Air District delayed its approval of \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/engineering/public-notices/2025/704470/fid203504_nsr_704470_eval_071825-pdf.pdf?rev=11ecccc3400042a09b30cd5817e00211&sc_lang=en\">Resynergi’s permit\u003c/a> in order to give the public more time to submit comments. The deadline is now Oct. 3.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve had a lot of folks coming to me trying to get me to essentially put a stop to the permitting process,” Hopkins said. “As long as a project is in compliance with our rules, it will move forward through the permitting process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Perhaps you’ve heard that \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2024/12/18/heres-what-happened-when-scientists-tested-the-air-with-my-gas-stove-on/\">pollution from gas stoves can harm your health\u003c/a>. What can you do to minimize your risk of exposure? Heaving your gas stove to the curb and going for an induction or electric one is an option, but that is available to just a limited number of people who own their home and can afford it. Luckily, there are a host of more accessible and low-cost solutions, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The simplest and most affordable options\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Switch on your hood.\u003c/strong> Many hoods vent outdoors, which can help cut down on pollution. The effectiveness of hoods really varies, with some cutting pollution by less than 15% and others by more than 98%, according to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory \u003ca href=\"https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/ehp.122-A154\">study\u003c/a>, which found most of the hoods they tested fell on the less effective end of that spectrum. Cooking on rear burners allowed hoods to capture more pollution than on the front ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Throw open windows when cooking, and keep them that way for a while afterward.\u003c/strong> This will move the dirty indoor air out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Buy or loan a portable, plug-in induction cooktop.\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/tillreda-portable-induction-cooktop-1-zone-white-10493520/\">Like this\u003c/a> one from IKEA, which retails for $60 at the time of publication. Keep in mind that you need to use pots and pans compatible with induction, like stainless steel or cast iron. Some \u003ca href=\"https://pge-induction.myturn.com/library/\">utilities\u003c/a> and even \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/4625/Induction-Cooktop-Loaner-Program\">public libraries\u003c/a> have loaner programs, so you can try these cooktops out before you purchase.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Turn on other electric appliances to cook when possible.\u003c/strong> Slow cookers, instapots, toaster ovens and electric tea kettles can help you minimize how frequently you cook on your gas stove.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The more complicated, full change out\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Take the plunge and purchase an induction or electric stove.\u003c/strong> The prices of induction stoves have come down in recent years, and highly rated ones now sell for under $1000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stoves are efficient, fast, and quiet. Induction groupies tout their safety around children or the elderly with memory issues – no one is accidentally turning or leaving a burner on. The surface of an induction cooktop won’t heat up unless there is a pot or pan on top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some incentives are available for induction stoves in California. See what you qualify for at the \u003ca href=\"https://incentives.switchison.org/residents/incentives?state=CA&_ga=2.243644357.1934015849.1732736439-1384157352.1732736439&_gl=1*dqc5fb*_gcl_au*NjQ5Nzk2MjQuMTczMjczNjQzOA..*_ga*MTM4NDE1NzM1Mi4xNzMyNzM2NDM5*_ga_8NM1W0PLNN*MTczMjczODkzNC4yLjAuMTczMjczODkzNC42MC4wLjA.\">Switch Is On\u003c/a>, a website that helps identify rebates and contractors for going electric.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Electric stoves are no longer made up of those black coils that slowly heat up, they too have come a long way. Like induction, new electric stoves are efficient and don’t create the pollution associated with gas stoves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you go for a new stove, most homes will require rewiring to accommodate the appliance, which uses more energy than a gas stove. The costs can be significant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Innovators have met this challenge by building stoves that can plug into a standard outlet, eliminating the need to mess with your electrical setup. Stoves like \u003ca href=\"https://copperhome.com/products/charlie\">this one\u003c/a> from company Copper include a battery inside, which could allow you to keep using it during a power outage. They come with a hefty price tag of roughly $6,000, but that is offset by a 30% \u003ca href=\"https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f5695.pdf\">federal tax credit (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Pollutants that come from cooking food, regardless of fuel\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Gas pollution aside, there’s good reason to keep your hood on or open windows when cooking, regardless of how you do it. Cooking food on both gas and electric ranges will produce tiny particles called PM2.5.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exposure to this kind of pollution from wildfire smoke has adverse health effects, but there isn’t as much data on the health effects of PM2.5 from cooking, said UCSF doctor and physician scientist John Balmes of the California Air Resources Board. Balmes is part of a current study that is looking into this.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Pushback from industry\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Lobbying groups like the American Gas Association challenge the assertion that gas stoves harm health, writing in an email to KQED that “the U.S. government and the regulatory agencies responsible for protecting residential consumer health and safety do not recognize any documented risks to respiratory health from natural gas stoves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/nitrogen-dioxides-impact-indoor-air-quality\">this EPA page\u003c/a> does discuss harms associated with nitrogen dioxide and said a source of the gas is “unvented combustion appliances, e.g., gas stoves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health groups like the \u003ca href=\"https://policysearch.ama-assn.org/policyfinder/detail/gas%20stove?uri=%2FAMADoc%2Fdirectives.xml-D-135.964.xml\">American Medical Association\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://apha.org/policies-and-advocacy/public-health-policy-statements/policy-database/2023/01/18/gas-stove-emissions\">American Public Health Association\u003c/a> are now warning that gas stoves increase the risk of respiratory illnesses and suggest people take steps to minimize the risks they pose.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Cooking with gas warms the planet\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Beyond health concerns, another reason to swap your gas stove for an electric one is because natural gas contributes to global warming, and relying on California’s greening electric grid creates fewer greenhouse gases. Methane warms the climate at nearly 80 times the rate of carbon dioxide, although it stays in the atmosphere for a much shorter period of time, around a decade or two, as opposed to hundreds or thousands of years like carbon dioxide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707\">One study\u003c/a> estimated that the amount of methane emitted from all gas stoves in U.S. homes was similar to the annual emissions of 500,000 cars. This same study found that some gas stoves leaked methane even while off.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>What you do depends on your risk tolerance\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>So, you may be asking, should I get rid of my gas stove? It depends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In terms of health, “Whether you choose to do so or not is up to a whole lot of factors like your personal risk tolerance, whether you have an old stove or a new stove, whether you can afford to switch one out,” said Yannai Kashtan, a scientist with PSE Healthy Energy. “But we do want to be clear that it’s settled science. If you have a gas stove, you’re going to be exposed to more air pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Perhaps you’ve heard that \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2024/12/18/heres-what-happened-when-scientists-tested-the-air-with-my-gas-stove-on/\">pollution from gas stoves can harm your health\u003c/a>. What can you do to minimize your risk of exposure? Heaving your gas stove to the curb and going for an induction or electric one is an option, but that is available to just a limited number of people who own their home and can afford it. Luckily, there are a host of more accessible and low-cost solutions, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The simplest and most affordable options\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Switch on your hood.\u003c/strong> Many hoods vent outdoors, which can help cut down on pollution. The effectiveness of hoods really varies, with some cutting pollution by less than 15% and others by more than 98%, according to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory \u003ca href=\"https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/ehp.122-A154\">study\u003c/a>, which found most of the hoods they tested fell on the less effective end of that spectrum. Cooking on rear burners allowed hoods to capture more pollution than on the front ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Throw open windows when cooking, and keep them that way for a while afterward.\u003c/strong> This will move the dirty indoor air out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Buy or loan a portable, plug-in induction cooktop.\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/tillreda-portable-induction-cooktop-1-zone-white-10493520/\">Like this\u003c/a> one from IKEA, which retails for $60 at the time of publication. Keep in mind that you need to use pots and pans compatible with induction, like stainless steel or cast iron. Some \u003ca href=\"https://pge-induction.myturn.com/library/\">utilities\u003c/a> and even \u003ca href=\"https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/4625/Induction-Cooktop-Loaner-Program\">public libraries\u003c/a> have loaner programs, so you can try these cooktops out before you purchase.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Turn on other electric appliances to cook when possible.\u003c/strong> Slow cookers, instapots, toaster ovens and electric tea kettles can help you minimize how frequently you cook on your gas stove.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The more complicated, full change out\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Take the plunge and purchase an induction or electric stove.\u003c/strong> The prices of induction stoves have come down in recent years, and highly rated ones now sell for under $1000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stoves are efficient, fast, and quiet. Induction groupies tout their safety around children or the elderly with memory issues – no one is accidentally turning or leaving a burner on. The surface of an induction cooktop won’t heat up unless there is a pot or pan on top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some incentives are available for induction stoves in California. See what you qualify for at the \u003ca href=\"https://incentives.switchison.org/residents/incentives?state=CA&_ga=2.243644357.1934015849.1732736439-1384157352.1732736439&_gl=1*dqc5fb*_gcl_au*NjQ5Nzk2MjQuMTczMjczNjQzOA..*_ga*MTM4NDE1NzM1Mi4xNzMyNzM2NDM5*_ga_8NM1W0PLNN*MTczMjczODkzNC4yLjAuMTczMjczODkzNC42MC4wLjA.\">Switch Is On\u003c/a>, a website that helps identify rebates and contractors for going electric.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Electric stoves are no longer made up of those black coils that slowly heat up, they too have come a long way. Like induction, new electric stoves are efficient and don’t create the pollution associated with gas stoves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you go for a new stove, most homes will require rewiring to accommodate the appliance, which uses more energy than a gas stove. The costs can be significant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Innovators have met this challenge by building stoves that can plug into a standard outlet, eliminating the need to mess with your electrical setup. Stoves like \u003ca href=\"https://copperhome.com/products/charlie\">this one\u003c/a> from company Copper include a battery inside, which could allow you to keep using it during a power outage. They come with a hefty price tag of roughly $6,000, but that is offset by a 30% \u003ca href=\"https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f5695.pdf\">federal tax credit (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Pollutants that come from cooking food, regardless of fuel\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Gas pollution aside, there’s good reason to keep your hood on or open windows when cooking, regardless of how you do it. Cooking food on both gas and electric ranges will produce tiny particles called PM2.5.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exposure to this kind of pollution from wildfire smoke has adverse health effects, but there isn’t as much data on the health effects of PM2.5 from cooking, said UCSF doctor and physician scientist John Balmes of the California Air Resources Board. Balmes is part of a current study that is looking into this.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Pushback from industry\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Lobbying groups like the American Gas Association challenge the assertion that gas stoves harm health, writing in an email to KQED that “the U.S. government and the regulatory agencies responsible for protecting residential consumer health and safety do not recognize any documented risks to respiratory health from natural gas stoves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/nitrogen-dioxides-impact-indoor-air-quality\">this EPA page\u003c/a> does discuss harms associated with nitrogen dioxide and said a source of the gas is “unvented combustion appliances, e.g., gas stoves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Health groups like the \u003ca href=\"https://policysearch.ama-assn.org/policyfinder/detail/gas%20stove?uri=%2FAMADoc%2Fdirectives.xml-D-135.964.xml\">American Medical Association\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://apha.org/policies-and-advocacy/public-health-policy-statements/policy-database/2023/01/18/gas-stove-emissions\">American Public Health Association\u003c/a> are now warning that gas stoves increase the risk of respiratory illnesses and suggest people take steps to minimize the risks they pose.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Cooking with gas warms the planet\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Beyond health concerns, another reason to swap your gas stove for an electric one is because natural gas contributes to global warming, and relying on California’s greening electric grid creates fewer greenhouse gases. Methane warms the climate at nearly 80 times the rate of carbon dioxide, although it stays in the atmosphere for a much shorter period of time, around a decade or two, as opposed to hundreds or thousands of years like carbon dioxide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707\">One study\u003c/a> estimated that the amount of methane emitted from all gas stoves in U.S. homes was similar to the annual emissions of 500,000 cars. This same study found that some gas stoves leaked methane even while off.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>What you do depends on your risk tolerance\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>So, you may be asking, should I get rid of my gas stove? It depends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In terms of health, “Whether you choose to do so or not is up to a whole lot of factors like your personal risk tolerance, whether you have an old stove or a new stove, whether you can afford to switch one out,” said Yannai Kashtan, a scientist with PSE Healthy Energy. “But we do want to be clear that it’s settled science. If you have a gas stove, you’re going to be exposed to more air pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1968622/mapa-reporte-actual-de-la-calidad-del-aire-en-el-area-de-la-bahia\">Leer en español\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Large circles on the map show Air Quality Index (AQI) values — for ozone and AQI2.5 — as measured at official, outdoor permanent monitoring sites managed in the Bay Area by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/about-air-quality/current-air-quality\">Air Quality Management District\u003c/a> and submitted to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.airnow.gov/\">U.S. EPA’s AirNow database\u003c/a>. Data from these sensors is updated hourly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smaller squares show real-time PM2.5 readings at low-cost, individually owned \u003ca href=\"https://map.purpleair.com/air-quality-standards-us-epa-aqi?opt=%2F1%2Flp%2Fa10%2Fp604800%2FcC0#7.72/37.63/-121.556\">PurpleAir sensors\u003c/a> that may be located indoors or outdoors. Data is updated every four hours. Outliers may be a result of localized activities, such as small fires or exposure to vehicle exhaust. Alternatively, healthy air quality in an otherwise unhealthy location could be the result of a sensor placed in a well-ventilated indoor area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Use the layer selector in the top left corner to toggle between layer views, including current wind and weather patterns, based on hourly weather station data provided by NOAA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>If the map does not display below, \u003ca href=\"https://kqedsf.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=a5534be2dbad4a168130942a641ab643\">view it here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv style=\"width: 100%;\" align=\"center\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqedsf.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=a5534be2dbad4a168130942a641ab643\" width=\"100%\" height=\"700\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Map produced by Matthew Green and \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendan-soule-6a085819/\">Brendan Soulé\u003c/a>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>What does AQI Mean?\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Air Quality Index (AQI) is a scale used to measure and report air pollution levels. It tells you how clean or polluted the air is and what health effects might be a concern. Generally, AQI values above 100 are considered unhealthy. Specifically, values between 101-150 are unhealthy for sensitive groups (like children, older adults, and people with heart or lung disease), 151-200 are unhealthy, 201-300 are very unhealthy, and anything over 300 is considered hazardous. When the air quality is poor (AQI above 100), it’s best to limit prolonged or strenuous outdoor activities. Sensitive groups should be especially cautious and may need to stay indoors. Checking the air quality forecast can help you plan your activities accordingly.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Want more information about air quality and wildfire smoke?\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1926793/protecting-your-health-from-toxic-wildfire-smoke\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How to protect yourself from wildfire smoke\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1969271/making-sense-of-purple-air-vs-airnow-and-a-new-map-to-rule-them-all\">How to read air quality maps properly, from Purple Air to AirNow\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11834305/masks-for-smoke-and-covid-19-what-kind-is-best\">Masks for smoke \u003cem>and\u003c/em> COVID: Which are best?\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Here is an expanded list of other air quality measurement resources:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://tools.airfire.org/monitoring/v4/#!/?category=PM2.5_nowcast¢erlat=42¢erlon=-95&zoom=4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">U.S. Forest Service Air Monitoring Program\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://mobile.arb.ca.gov/breathewell/CityList.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Air Resource Board Breathewell for Mobile\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://aqicn.org/city/california/san-francisco/san-francisco-arkansas-street/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">World Air Quality Index\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=37.7576497&lng=-122.4353884&zoom=10\">AirNow is also running a project\u003c/a> that adds data from low-cost sensors to a fire and smoke map.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1968622/mapa-reporte-actual-de-la-calidad-del-aire-en-el-area-de-la-bahia\">Leer en español\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Large circles on the map show Air Quality Index (AQI) values — for ozone and AQI2.5 — as measured at official, outdoor permanent monitoring sites managed in the Bay Area by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/about-air-quality/current-air-quality\">Air Quality Management District\u003c/a> and submitted to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.airnow.gov/\">U.S. EPA’s AirNow database\u003c/a>. Data from these sensors is updated hourly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smaller squares show real-time PM2.5 readings at low-cost, individually owned \u003ca href=\"https://map.purpleair.com/air-quality-standards-us-epa-aqi?opt=%2F1%2Flp%2Fa10%2Fp604800%2FcC0#7.72/37.63/-121.556\">PurpleAir sensors\u003c/a> that may be located indoors or outdoors. Data is updated every four hours. Outliers may be a result of localized activities, such as small fires or exposure to vehicle exhaust. Alternatively, healthy air quality in an otherwise unhealthy location could be the result of a sensor placed in a well-ventilated indoor area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Use the layer selector in the top left corner to toggle between layer views, including current wind and weather patterns, based on hourly weather station data provided by NOAA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>If the map does not display below, \u003ca href=\"https://kqedsf.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=a5534be2dbad4a168130942a641ab643\">view it here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv style=\"width: 100%;\" align=\"center\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://kqedsf.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=a5534be2dbad4a168130942a641ab643\" width=\"100%\" height=\"700\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Map produced by Matthew Green and \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendan-soule-6a085819/\">Brendan Soulé\u003c/a>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>What does AQI Mean?\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Air Quality Index (AQI) is a scale used to measure and report air pollution levels. It tells you how clean or polluted the air is and what health effects might be a concern. Generally, AQI values above 100 are considered unhealthy. Specifically, values between 101-150 are unhealthy for sensitive groups (like children, older adults, and people with heart or lung disease), 151-200 are unhealthy, 201-300 are very unhealthy, and anything over 300 is considered hazardous. When the air quality is poor (AQI above 100), it’s best to limit prolonged or strenuous outdoor activities. Sensitive groups should be especially cautious and may need to stay indoors. Checking the air quality forecast can help you plan your activities accordingly.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Want more information about air quality and wildfire smoke?\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1926793/protecting-your-health-from-toxic-wildfire-smoke\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How to protect yourself from wildfire smoke\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1969271/making-sense-of-purple-air-vs-airnow-and-a-new-map-to-rule-them-all\">How to read air quality maps properly, from Purple Air to AirNow\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11834305/masks-for-smoke-and-covid-19-what-kind-is-best\">Masks for smoke \u003cem>and\u003c/em> COVID: Which are best?\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Here is an expanded list of other air quality measurement resources:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://tools.airfire.org/monitoring/v4/#!/?category=PM2.5_nowcast¢erlat=42¢erlon=-95&zoom=4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">U.S. Forest Service Air Monitoring Program\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://mobile.arb.ca.gov/breathewell/CityList.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Air Resource Board Breathewell for Mobile\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://aqicn.org/city/california/san-francisco/san-francisco-arkansas-street/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">World Air Quality Index\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=37.7576497&lng=-122.4353884&zoom=10\">AirNow is also running a project\u003c/a> that adds data from low-cost sensors to a fire and smoke map.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "How Wildfire Smoke Is Erasing Years of Progress Toward Cleaning Up America's Air",
"headTitle": "How Wildfire Smoke Is Erasing Years of Progress Toward Cleaning Up America’s Air | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Over the last few decades, air in the U.S. has undergone a remarkable transformation: pollution levels of health-damaging tiny particles have dropped by roughly 40% since 2000, primarily thanks to the country’s decades-long effort to improve air quality through the Clean Air Act, a landmark environmental law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smoke from wildfires fueled by human-driven climate change, however, has erased roughly 25% of those air quality gains, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06522-6\">a new study\u003c/a> published Wednesday in \u003cem>Nature\u003c/em>. “We’ve seen really remarkable improvements in air quality,” says Marissa Childs, one of the authors of the study and a researcher at Harvard’s Center for the Environment. “But wildfire smoke is undoing that progress in many states.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effects are more pronounced in Western states, where smoke-laden days have become an annual fact of life. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/10/25/1131279317/pacific-northwest-schools-cancel-outdoor-activities-when-air-quality-is-unhealth\">Schools\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/transcripts/550656850\"> keep kids inside during recess\u003c/a>; \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/08/25/1195926923/canada-wildfire-smoke-asthma-cdc-new-york-hospital-visits\">emergency rooms\u003c/a> know to prepare when wildfires break out nearby. The study found that since 2016, in states like California, Washington, and Oregon, wildfire smoke has added enough pollution to the air to wipe out nearly half of the total air quality gains made from 2000 onward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Midwest, South, and eastern states are not immune. “This is impacting way more places than we used to think and at a larger scale,” says Childs. Even before this year’s\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/08/22/1195154996/some-of-canadas-wildfires-likely-made-worse-by-human-driven-climate-change\"> Canadian wildfires\u003c/a> blanketed the Eastern seaboard in thick smoke, smoke plumes regularly tanked air quality far from\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184393713/canadas-wildfires-are-part-of-a-worrying-trend-but-theyre-not-without-precedent\"> the actual wildfires\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Clean Air Act worked until now\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The bipartisan Clean Air Act, signed into law in 1970, has had remarkable success cleaning up \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/06/19/1179670466/air-pollution-satellite-baltimore-climate-change\">the nation’s air\u003c/a>. In its first few decades, levels of the six major pollutants it addressed dropped by \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/40th-anniversary-clean-air-act\">more than 40%\u003c/a>. Since 2000, the drop has continued nearly everywhere in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Marissa Childs, author and researcher, Harvard's Center for the Environment\"]‘We’ve seen really remarkable improvements in air quality. But wildfire smoke is undoing that progress in many states.’[/pullquote]One major target of the Clean Air Act is PM2.5 — tiny particles about 30 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Many different sources contribute to PM2.5 including dust, and soot from burning coal or gas. The super-small particles are also produced when anything burns such as forests, grasslands, and houses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Closing or retiring coal and gas-fired power plants cut PM2.5 levels nearby. So did improving car and truck fuel efficiency and pollution-control technologies like catalytic converters — though pollution levels near major roadways still often exceed the EPA’s daily standard. Nationally, PM2.5 levels dropped \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/air-trends/particulate-matter-pm25-trends\">another 42% between 2000 and 2022\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Overall, there was a big improvement — but it was not shared equitably,” says Tarik Benmarhnia, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of California, San Diego. Communities of colo\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/06/19/1179670466/air-pollution-satellite-baltimore-climate-change\">r remained exposed to higher pollution\u003c/a>,\u003ca href=\"https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/EHP8584\"> even as total levels dropped\u003c/a>. Black communities in particular breathe in much more heavy pollution from \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abf4491\">cars, heavy industry, and construction\u003c/a> than any other groups. That’s a pattern that holds nationwide and over decades, including into today’s efforts to cut back fossil fuel pollution, which are at risk of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41131-x\">continuing the disparities\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More smoke is not good for anyone’s health\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Overall, the country’s air was getting cleaner. But Childs, who was living in California at the time watching wildfire seasons break record after record, could tell that wasn’t the whole story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists were pinpointing how climate change exacerbated the burns. The answer, they found over and over, \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2213815120\">was a lot\u003c/a>. Hotter, drier conditions sucked more moisture out of vegetation, priming it to burn explosively and extensively when a spark happened to catch.[aside postID='science_1926793,science_1930023,news_11834305' label='Related coverage']Decades and even centuries of fire suppression — the long-held policy of the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies — also fed the wildfires. Many habitats across the Western U.S. evolved to experience frequent burns, which cleared away excess fuel, and Indigenous communities often used fire to keep those habitats open as well. Now forests are packed with \u003ca href=\"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecs2.3250\">many more trees\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The combination has led to wildfires that burn 10 times the acreage as 50 years ago. Massive, destructive burn years like 2020 are projected to become much more common as \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00299-0\">climate change marches forward\u003c/a>, though \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/features/professionals-prepare-for-prescribed-burn#:~:text=Prescribed%20fire%20helps%20reduce%20wildfire,less%20available%20material%20to%20burn.\">aggressive forest management\u003c/a> could blunt some of the worst outcomes,\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1126912268\"> research shows\u003c/a>. And wildfires are not just tied to the West. This year, wildfires burned from Canada’s East to West coasts and deep into Louisiana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christopher Migliaccio, an immunologist at the University of Montana, studies the impact of wildfire smoke on human health. When he moved to Montana in 2000, wildfires weren’t top-of-mind for most people. But within the past decade, “the concern has gotten huge,” he says. “And it’s gone global.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because the health impacts leak well outside the immediate realm of the fires. Smoke, and all its fine particles, can travel thousands of miles. “When you see a wildfire smoke plume, you see that pollution. Essentially, the smoke that you’re seeing is PM2.5,” says Colleen Reid, an environmental public health expert at the University of Colorado, Boulder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not yet completely clear if \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/05/17/1099482986/eliminating-fossil-fuel-air-pollution-would-save-about-50-000-lives-study-finds\">wildfire smoke particles\u003c/a> induce different health outcomes than PM2.5 from other sources, like roadways, though \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/03/05/973848360/study-finds-wildfire-smoke-more-harmful-to-humans-than-pollution-from-cars\">some research points that direction\u003c/a>. But the tiny particles from fires and other pollution sources are so small they cross from lungs into the bloodstream, driving inflammation throughout the body. Even short-term exposure to wildfire smoke makes lung problems like asthma worse, as well as a panoply of other health issues, from heart attacks to neurological issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Migliaccio \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32764367/\">led a study\u003c/a> that followed Montanans exposed to extremely high doses of smoke for 49 straight days in 2017. It found their lung function was depressed for at least two years afterward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 41 states, air quality had been getting better between 2000 and the 2010s. But as wildfires exploded, those improvements stopped or even reversed. Smoke was responsible for just intermittent “exceedances,” when air pollution exceeds EPA’s limits, in the early part of the record. By 2020-2022, wildfire smoke was the primary cause of bad air in four western states and a major contributor in 17 others.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Solutions are not straightforward\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wildfires are a natural and necessary ecological reality in many parts of the country. But research predicts the frequency and size of fires will\u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00299-0\"> grow precipitously in coming decades\u003c/a>, increasing peoples’ exposure to smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Clean Air Act effectively regulates point-source pollution, like soot from power plants. It is less effective at regulating risk from smoke, which drifts across state borders and affects people far from the wildfires themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dialing back the climate pressures that exacerbate wildfires is critical, says Childs. But so is creating forest and fire management policies that reduce exposure to very high concentrations of smoke. That could be, somewhat counterintuitively, increasing the number of \u003cem>prescribed\u003c/em> fires, which can lessen the risk of catastrophic wildfires, though they also generate local smoke plumes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, people can take steps to protect themselves from inevitable smoke exposure, says Reid. Installing air filters in your home — and keeping them clean — can go a long way. Health experts recommend wearing N95 or KN95 masks if you have to go outdoors, and to avoid exercise in smoky air if possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=How+wildfire+smoke+is+erasing+years+of+progress+toward+cleaning+up+America%27s+air&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A new study finds that smoke from massive wildfires has eroded about a quarter of the air quality gains from the last few decades. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Over the last few decades, air in the U.S. has undergone a remarkable transformation: pollution levels of health-damaging tiny particles have dropped by roughly 40% since 2000, primarily thanks to the country’s decades-long effort to improve air quality through the Clean Air Act, a landmark environmental law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smoke from wildfires fueled by human-driven climate change, however, has erased roughly 25% of those air quality gains, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06522-6\">a new study\u003c/a> published Wednesday in \u003cem>Nature\u003c/em>. “We’ve seen really remarkable improvements in air quality,” says Marissa Childs, one of the authors of the study and a researcher at Harvard’s Center for the Environment. “But wildfire smoke is undoing that progress in many states.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effects are more pronounced in Western states, where smoke-laden days have become an annual fact of life. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/10/25/1131279317/pacific-northwest-schools-cancel-outdoor-activities-when-air-quality-is-unhealth\">Schools\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/transcripts/550656850\"> keep kids inside during recess\u003c/a>; \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/08/25/1195926923/canada-wildfire-smoke-asthma-cdc-new-york-hospital-visits\">emergency rooms\u003c/a> know to prepare when wildfires break out nearby. The study found that since 2016, in states like California, Washington, and Oregon, wildfire smoke has added enough pollution to the air to wipe out nearly half of the total air quality gains made from 2000 onward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Midwest, South, and eastern states are not immune. “This is impacting way more places than we used to think and at a larger scale,” says Childs. Even before this year’s\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/08/22/1195154996/some-of-canadas-wildfires-likely-made-worse-by-human-driven-climate-change\"> Canadian wildfires\u003c/a> blanketed the Eastern seaboard in thick smoke, smoke plumes regularly tanked air quality far from\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184393713/canadas-wildfires-are-part-of-a-worrying-trend-but-theyre-not-without-precedent\"> the actual wildfires\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Clean Air Act worked until now\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The bipartisan Clean Air Act, signed into law in 1970, has had remarkable success cleaning up \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/06/19/1179670466/air-pollution-satellite-baltimore-climate-change\">the nation’s air\u003c/a>. In its first few decades, levels of the six major pollutants it addressed dropped by \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/40th-anniversary-clean-air-act\">more than 40%\u003c/a>. Since 2000, the drop has continued nearly everywhere in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>One major target of the Clean Air Act is PM2.5 — tiny particles about 30 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Many different sources contribute to PM2.5 including dust, and soot from burning coal or gas. The super-small particles are also produced when anything burns such as forests, grasslands, and houses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Closing or retiring coal and gas-fired power plants cut PM2.5 levels nearby. So did improving car and truck fuel efficiency and pollution-control technologies like catalytic converters — though pollution levels near major roadways still often exceed the EPA’s daily standard. Nationally, PM2.5 levels dropped \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/air-trends/particulate-matter-pm25-trends\">another 42% between 2000 and 2022\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Overall, there was a big improvement — but it was not shared equitably,” says Tarik Benmarhnia, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of California, San Diego. Communities of colo\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/06/19/1179670466/air-pollution-satellite-baltimore-climate-change\">r remained exposed to higher pollution\u003c/a>,\u003ca href=\"https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/EHP8584\"> even as total levels dropped\u003c/a>. Black communities in particular breathe in much more heavy pollution from \u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abf4491\">cars, heavy industry, and construction\u003c/a> than any other groups. That’s a pattern that holds nationwide and over decades, including into today’s efforts to cut back fossil fuel pollution, which are at risk of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41131-x\">continuing the disparities\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More smoke is not good for anyone’s health\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Overall, the country’s air was getting cleaner. But Childs, who was living in California at the time watching wildfire seasons break record after record, could tell that wasn’t the whole story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists were pinpointing how climate change exacerbated the burns. The answer, they found over and over, \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2213815120\">was a lot\u003c/a>. Hotter, drier conditions sucked more moisture out of vegetation, priming it to burn explosively and extensively when a spark happened to catch.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Decades and even centuries of fire suppression — the long-held policy of the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies — also fed the wildfires. Many habitats across the Western U.S. evolved to experience frequent burns, which cleared away excess fuel, and Indigenous communities often used fire to keep those habitats open as well. Now forests are packed with \u003ca href=\"https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecs2.3250\">many more trees\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The combination has led to wildfires that burn 10 times the acreage as 50 years ago. Massive, destructive burn years like 2020 are projected to become much more common as \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00299-0\">climate change marches forward\u003c/a>, though \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/features/professionals-prepare-for-prescribed-burn#:~:text=Prescribed%20fire%20helps%20reduce%20wildfire,less%20available%20material%20to%20burn.\">aggressive forest management\u003c/a> could blunt some of the worst outcomes,\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1126912268\"> research shows\u003c/a>. And wildfires are not just tied to the West. This year, wildfires burned from Canada’s East to West coasts and deep into Louisiana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christopher Migliaccio, an immunologist at the University of Montana, studies the impact of wildfire smoke on human health. When he moved to Montana in 2000, wildfires weren’t top-of-mind for most people. But within the past decade, “the concern has gotten huge,” he says. “And it’s gone global.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because the health impacts leak well outside the immediate realm of the fires. Smoke, and all its fine particles, can travel thousands of miles. “When you see a wildfire smoke plume, you see that pollution. Essentially, the smoke that you’re seeing is PM2.5,” says Colleen Reid, an environmental public health expert at the University of Colorado, Boulder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not yet completely clear if \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/05/17/1099482986/eliminating-fossil-fuel-air-pollution-would-save-about-50-000-lives-study-finds\">wildfire smoke particles\u003c/a> induce different health outcomes than PM2.5 from other sources, like roadways, though \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/03/05/973848360/study-finds-wildfire-smoke-more-harmful-to-humans-than-pollution-from-cars\">some research points that direction\u003c/a>. But the tiny particles from fires and other pollution sources are so small they cross from lungs into the bloodstream, driving inflammation throughout the body. Even short-term exposure to wildfire smoke makes lung problems like asthma worse, as well as a panoply of other health issues, from heart attacks to neurological issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Migliaccio \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32764367/\">led a study\u003c/a> that followed Montanans exposed to extremely high doses of smoke for 49 straight days in 2017. It found their lung function was depressed for at least two years afterward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 41 states, air quality had been getting better between 2000 and the 2010s. But as wildfires exploded, those improvements stopped or even reversed. Smoke was responsible for just intermittent “exceedances,” when air pollution exceeds EPA’s limits, in the early part of the record. By 2020-2022, wildfire smoke was the primary cause of bad air in four western states and a major contributor in 17 others.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Solutions are not straightforward\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Wildfires are a natural and necessary ecological reality in many parts of the country. But research predicts the frequency and size of fires will\u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00299-0\"> grow precipitously in coming decades\u003c/a>, increasing peoples’ exposure to smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Clean Air Act effectively regulates point-source pollution, like soot from power plants. It is less effective at regulating risk from smoke, which drifts across state borders and affects people far from the wildfires themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dialing back the climate pressures that exacerbate wildfires is critical, says Childs. But so is creating forest and fire management policies that reduce exposure to very high concentrations of smoke. That could be, somewhat counterintuitively, increasing the number of \u003cem>prescribed\u003c/em> fires, which can lessen the risk of catastrophic wildfires, though they also generate local smoke plumes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, people can take steps to protect themselves from inevitable smoke exposure, says Reid. Installing air filters in your home — and keeping them clean — can go a long way. Health experts recommend wearing N95 or KN95 masks if you have to go outdoors, and to avoid exercise in smoky air if possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=How+wildfire+smoke+is+erasing+years+of+progress+toward+cleaning+up+America%27s+air&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "3 Lessons From the Western US for Dealing With Wildfire Smoke",
"headTitle": "3 Lessons From the Western US for Dealing With Wildfire Smoke | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>When New York City’s skyline turned an eerie orange color with smoke from widespread wildfires in Canada, it was an all-too-familiar sight for residents of the Western U.S. In recent years, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/search?q=wildfires&site=all\">record-setting wildfires\u003c/a> have darkened the sky for weeks at a time with unhealthy air, upending life for Westerners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hazardous wildfire smoke is becoming an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11890211/dangerous%E2%80%91air%E2%80%91as%E2%80%91california%E2%80%91burns%E2%80%91america%E2%80%91breathes%E2%80%91toxic%E2%80%91smoke.\">increasing problem around the country\u003c/a>, as NPR’s California Newsroom has \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11890211/dangerous%E2%80%91air%E2%80%91as%E2%80%91california%E2%80%91burns%E2%80%91america%E2%80%91breathes%E2%80%91toxic%E2%80%91smoke.\">reported\u003c/a>. The risk is only expected to rise, as a hotter climate helps create bigger and more severe fires that can take months to contain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tiny particles in smoke can go deep in the lungs, increasing the risk of asthma, heart attack and stroke. One scientific study found wildfire smoke is \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/03/05/973848360/study-finds-wildfire-smoke-more-harmful-to-humans-than-pollution-from-cars\">even more dangerous\u003c/a> than pollution from cars and trucks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the West, schools districts, businesses and families have had to grapple with how to live with smoke. Here’s what they’ve learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>1. Everyone needs to protect themselves, even when they’re indoors\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When wildfires raged in California in the summer of 2020, the air was choked with smoke for weeks. Many residents tracked the air quality in real-time on \u003ca href=\"https://www2.purpleair.com/\">Purple Air\u003c/a>, a crowd-sourced network of sensors that shows pollution readings across a city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On those same maps, pollution also spiked inside people’s homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some households had installed sensors indoors to track air quality levels. Researchers at the University of California Berkeley studied the data from 1,400 sensors in San Francisco and Los Angeles and found that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/09/07/1034895514/sheltering-inside-may-not-protect-you-from-the-dangers-of-wildfire-smoke\">even indoors, air pollution tripled during the fires\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lesson: just going inside isn’t enough. Invisible particles in smoke, known as particulate matter or PM 2.5, can seep in through doors and cracks in windows. In older homes and substandard housing, the infiltration can be even worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, researchers found the households that took action fared much better. Those that closed their windows, had air purifiers or ran central air conditioners had lower levels of indoor pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Covid-19 pandemic has made portable indoor air purifiers a much more common item, but when smoke fills the skies, it can be tough to find one in a store. So, plans to build more affordable DIY air purifiers have proliferated online where \u003ca href=\"https://aghealth.ucdavis.edu/news/corsi-rosenthal-box-diy-box-fan-air-filter-covid-19-and-wildfire-smoke\">all someone needs is a box fan, some air filters and duct tape\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>2. Create a plan for what to do with kids\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A haze of gray smoke in the sky usually means one thing for families: a scramble for childcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/live-updates/air-quality-wildfires-canada-smoke#new-york-city-schools-canceled-all-outdoor-activities-for-the-day\">Many schools close\u003c/a> when air quality reaches hazardous levels, but policies can be patchwork and haphazard. While an elementary school might close for the day, nearby preschools or aftercare programs might remain open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For school administrators, the decision can be fraught. Many working parents have no other options for where to send their kids. And knowing when to keep kids indoors can be tough for families, based on the official \u003ca href=\"https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/\">air quality index\u003c/a> or AQI. While children are considered a “sensitive” group, there’s not much guidance about whether a \u003ca href=\"https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/\">yellow or orange air alert\u003c/a> is enough to keep kids under lockdown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Children are \u003ca href=\"http://childrenscolorado.org/conditions-and-advice/parenting/parenting-articles/wildfire-smoke/\">particularly vulnerable to the effects of wildfire smoke\u003c/a>. They’re more active, have developing lungs and take in more air than adults do relative to their body size. The decision to close school is up to each local district, but just a few years ago, there weren’t many health resources to inform those decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As wildfire smoke became more severe in California, state officials released an index with more specific \u003ca href=\"https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ep/documents/airqualityguidance.pdf\">advice for schools about activities (PDF)\u003c/a>, like what to do about P.E., recess and sports events. (In the state’s version, it doesn’t mention exact air quality index numbers, though many school districts have consulted local air quality officials and created guidelines, \u003ca href=\"https://www.shastacounty.gov/sites/default/files/fileattachments/air_quality/page/2400/aq-levels-guidelines.pdf\">like this version (PDF)\u003c/a> from Shasta County Office of Education.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Creating smoke response plans ahead of time, with community input, is key for schools, according to Eric Wittmershaus, director of communications for the Sonoma County Office of Education. On the West Coast, “smoke days” are becoming the new “snow days.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the things we tell school officials to balance is whether the students will be safer and healthier if they’re in their school building, which may have a better HVAC system than what the students have at home,” Wittmershaus says. “It’s going to be a fact of life we struggle with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>3. The most vulnerable communities of people need direct help\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Some of those most susceptible to the health impacts of wildfire smoke are the least able to protect themselves. Recent episodes of smoke on the West Coast have revealed how some populations are falling through the cracks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people don’t realize they need to protect themselves from smoke, unlike other extreme weather events. The elderly or those with health problems might struggle to get the tools and solutions to filter the air at home. Those who lack housing have no way to escape being exposed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We see individuals with access to fewer resources, who may live in substandard housing, who may desire to reduce their exposure but who are unable to do so,” says Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, assistant professor in the department of earth system science at Stanford University, who has studied how communities responded to smoke in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overall, \u003ca href=\"https://earth.stanford.edu/news/how-do-people-respond-wildfire-smoke\">not many people are checking the air quality index\u003c/a> on a regular basis and changing their behavior, her research found. Instead, seeing how other people react to smoke is the bigger motivator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lesson: make sure the message is coming from those in the local community, like community groups, senior centers or faith groups. Providing masks, air filters and resources to groups on the ground can help ensure it reaches those who need it most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=3+lessons+from+the+Western+U.S.+for+dealing+with+wildfire+smoke+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "How bad does the air get inside your house? What should schools do about recess? Western states have grappled with all that before.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When New York City’s skyline turned an eerie orange color with smoke from widespread wildfires in Canada, it was an all-too-familiar sight for residents of the Western U.S. In recent years, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/search?q=wildfires&site=all\">record-setting wildfires\u003c/a> have darkened the sky for weeks at a time with unhealthy air, upending life for Westerners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hazardous wildfire smoke is becoming an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11890211/dangerous%E2%80%91air%E2%80%91as%E2%80%91california%E2%80%91burns%E2%80%91america%E2%80%91breathes%E2%80%91toxic%E2%80%91smoke.\">increasing problem around the country\u003c/a>, as NPR’s California Newsroom has \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11890211/dangerous%E2%80%91air%E2%80%91as%E2%80%91california%E2%80%91burns%E2%80%91america%E2%80%91breathes%E2%80%91toxic%E2%80%91smoke.\">reported\u003c/a>. The risk is only expected to rise, as a hotter climate helps create bigger and more severe fires that can take months to contain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tiny particles in smoke can go deep in the lungs, increasing the risk of asthma, heart attack and stroke. One scientific study found wildfire smoke is \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/03/05/973848360/study-finds-wildfire-smoke-more-harmful-to-humans-than-pollution-from-cars\">even more dangerous\u003c/a> than pollution from cars and trucks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the West, schools districts, businesses and families have had to grapple with how to live with smoke. Here’s what they’ve learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>1. Everyone needs to protect themselves, even when they’re indoors\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When wildfires raged in California in the summer of 2020, the air was choked with smoke for weeks. Many residents tracked the air quality in real-time on \u003ca href=\"https://www2.purpleair.com/\">Purple Air\u003c/a>, a crowd-sourced network of sensors that shows pollution readings across a city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On those same maps, pollution also spiked inside people’s homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some households had installed sensors indoors to track air quality levels. Researchers at the University of California Berkeley studied the data from 1,400 sensors in San Francisco and Los Angeles and found that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/09/07/1034895514/sheltering-inside-may-not-protect-you-from-the-dangers-of-wildfire-smoke\">even indoors, air pollution tripled during the fires\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lesson: just going inside isn’t enough. Invisible particles in smoke, known as particulate matter or PM 2.5, can seep in through doors and cracks in windows. In older homes and substandard housing, the infiltration can be even worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, researchers found the households that took action fared much better. Those that closed their windows, had air purifiers or ran central air conditioners had lower levels of indoor pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Covid-19 pandemic has made portable indoor air purifiers a much more common item, but when smoke fills the skies, it can be tough to find one in a store. So, plans to build more affordable DIY air purifiers have proliferated online where \u003ca href=\"https://aghealth.ucdavis.edu/news/corsi-rosenthal-box-diy-box-fan-air-filter-covid-19-and-wildfire-smoke\">all someone needs is a box fan, some air filters and duct tape\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>2. Create a plan for what to do with kids\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A haze of gray smoke in the sky usually means one thing for families: a scramble for childcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/live-updates/air-quality-wildfires-canada-smoke#new-york-city-schools-canceled-all-outdoor-activities-for-the-day\">Many schools close\u003c/a> when air quality reaches hazardous levels, but policies can be patchwork and haphazard. While an elementary school might close for the day, nearby preschools or aftercare programs might remain open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For school administrators, the decision can be fraught. Many working parents have no other options for where to send their kids. And knowing when to keep kids indoors can be tough for families, based on the official \u003ca href=\"https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/\">air quality index\u003c/a> or AQI. While children are considered a “sensitive” group, there’s not much guidance about whether a \u003ca href=\"https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/\">yellow or orange air alert\u003c/a> is enough to keep kids under lockdown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Children are \u003ca href=\"http://childrenscolorado.org/conditions-and-advice/parenting/parenting-articles/wildfire-smoke/\">particularly vulnerable to the effects of wildfire smoke\u003c/a>. They’re more active, have developing lungs and take in more air than adults do relative to their body size. The decision to close school is up to each local district, but just a few years ago, there weren’t many health resources to inform those decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As wildfire smoke became more severe in California, state officials released an index with more specific \u003ca href=\"https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ep/documents/airqualityguidance.pdf\">advice for schools about activities (PDF)\u003c/a>, like what to do about P.E., recess and sports events. (In the state’s version, it doesn’t mention exact air quality index numbers, though many school districts have consulted local air quality officials and created guidelines, \u003ca href=\"https://www.shastacounty.gov/sites/default/files/fileattachments/air_quality/page/2400/aq-levels-guidelines.pdf\">like this version (PDF)\u003c/a> from Shasta County Office of Education.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Creating smoke response plans ahead of time, with community input, is key for schools, according to Eric Wittmershaus, director of communications for the Sonoma County Office of Education. On the West Coast, “smoke days” are becoming the new “snow days.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the things we tell school officials to balance is whether the students will be safer and healthier if they’re in their school building, which may have a better HVAC system than what the students have at home,” Wittmershaus says. “It’s going to be a fact of life we struggle with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>3. The most vulnerable communities of people need direct help\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Some of those most susceptible to the health impacts of wildfire smoke are the least able to protect themselves. Recent episodes of smoke on the West Coast have revealed how some populations are falling through the cracks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people don’t realize they need to protect themselves from smoke, unlike other extreme weather events. The elderly or those with health problems might struggle to get the tools and solutions to filter the air at home. Those who lack housing have no way to escape being exposed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We see individuals with access to fewer resources, who may live in substandard housing, who may desire to reduce their exposure but who are unable to do so,” says Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, assistant professor in the department of earth system science at Stanford University, who has studied how communities responded to smoke in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overall, \u003ca href=\"https://earth.stanford.edu/news/how-do-people-respond-wildfire-smoke\">not many people are checking the air quality index\u003c/a> on a regular basis and changing their behavior, her research found. Instead, seeing how other people react to smoke is the bigger motivator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lesson: make sure the message is coming from those in the local community, like community groups, senior centers or faith groups. Providing masks, air filters and resources to groups on the ground can help ensure it reaches those who need it most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=3+lessons+from+the+Western+U.S.+for+dealing+with+wildfire+smoke+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California's Air Board Votes to Scale Down Fleets of Diesel Trucks",
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"content": "\u003cp>The California Air Resources Board approved an ambitious plan today to phase out its diesel truck fleets, from semi-trucks to delivery vans and garbage trucks, despite the opposition of industry groups who said the plan would be near impossible for them to enact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is the air board’s latest regulation geared at cleaning up toxic air quality and fighting climate change, and comes a day after the same body passed \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/04/27/1172639598/california-emission-rules-trains-pollution\">first-in-the-nation regulations on diesel trains\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s powerful air regulators have been California’s spearpoint in the fight against climate change in recent years, as they’ve charted an ambitious path to siphon down the state’s use of planet-warming fossil fuels over the next two decades, including banning the sale of new gasoline cars after 2035 and forcing the electrification of most of the state’s transportation sector, the largest contributor of carbon emissions in California.[aside postID=science_1982474 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/04/RS64748_GettyImages-94155923-qut-1020x680.jpg']Gideon Kracov, a board member and environmental lawyer from Los Angeles, framed the clean-fleet policy as an ambitious capstone for an agency that has passed no shortage of first-in-the-nation climate rules, calling it the “end of the beginning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Board Chair Liane Randolph said in a statement that California has the technology to build a zero-emission future now and called the new regulations a “reasonable” and “innovative” approach to “clean up the vehicles on our roads and ensure that Californians have the clean air that they want and deserve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While these 1.8 million trucks represent a tiny fraction of vehicles on the road at just 6%, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/ca-clean-trucks-report.pdf\">they are responsible for more than a quarter of the transportation sector’s greenhouse gas pollution (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/advanced-clean-fleets\">The state’s new regulations are meant to accelerate the use of zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks\u003c/a> in California within the next two decades and will require the electrification by 2035 of highly polluting drayage trucks, which transport shipping containers from ports and rail yards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Board member Tania Pacheco-Werner, who is co-director of a health policy institute at Fresno State, framed the policy as an issue of environmental justice.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Tania Pacheco-Werner, California Air Resources Board member\"]‘Even the air is unequal … Wealthier communities have more resources, green space and built environment to protect them from the harmful impacts of dirty trucks.’[/pullquote]“Even the air is unequal,” she said. “Wealthier communities have more resources, green space and built environment to protect them from the harmful impacts of dirty trucks. Others do not. And we see it in differences in emergency visits and hospitalizations due to respiratory issues for people who live closer to freeways and truck traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the policy will improve their lives “first and foremost, and we should all be very proud of that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During board hearings that spanned two days, industry groups and government agencies fiercely pushed back on the policies, arguing they are too onerous and would drive up costs for Californians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chris Shimoda, senior vice president of government affairs for the California Trucking Association, told KQED that the state doesn’t have enough charging infrastructure for electric trucks, particularly public charging stations, adding that “nearly 100% of our membership says [the rules] cannot be accomplished.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jim Verburg of the Western States Petroleum Association \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/04/california-phases-out-diesel-trucks/\">told the board\u003c/a> that if businesses couldn’t comply it would “compromise the delivery of essential goods and services to Californians or compromise the state’s economy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Gideon Kracov, a board member and environmental lawyer from Los Angeles, framed the clean-fleet policy as an ambitious capstone for an agency that has passed no shortage of first-in-the-nation climate rules, calling it the “end of the beginning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Board Chair Liane Randolph said in a statement that California has the technology to build a zero-emission future now and called the new regulations a “reasonable” and “innovative” approach to “clean up the vehicles on our roads and ensure that Californians have the clean air that they want and deserve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While these 1.8 million trucks represent a tiny fraction of vehicles on the road at just 6%, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/ca-clean-trucks-report.pdf\">they are responsible for more than a quarter of the transportation sector’s greenhouse gas pollution (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/advanced-clean-fleets\">The state’s new regulations are meant to accelerate the use of zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks\u003c/a> in California within the next two decades and will require the electrification by 2035 of highly polluting drayage trucks, which transport shipping containers from ports and rail yards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Board member Tania Pacheco-Werner, who is co-director of a health policy institute at Fresno State, framed the policy as an issue of environmental justice.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Even the air is unequal,” she said. “Wealthier communities have more resources, green space and built environment to protect them from the harmful impacts of dirty trucks. Others do not. And we see it in differences in emergency visits and hospitalizations due to respiratory issues for people who live closer to freeways and truck traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the policy will improve their lives “first and foremost, and we should all be very proud of that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During board hearings that spanned two days, industry groups and government agencies fiercely pushed back on the policies, arguing they are too onerous and would drive up costs for Californians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chris Shimoda, senior vice president of government affairs for the California Trucking Association, told KQED that the state doesn’t have enough charging infrastructure for electric trucks, particularly public charging stations, adding that “nearly 100% of our membership says [the rules] cannot be accomplished.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jim Verburg of the Western States Petroleum Association \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/04/california-phases-out-diesel-trucks/\">told the board\u003c/a> that if businesses couldn’t comply it would “compromise the delivery of essential goods and services to Californians or compromise the state’s economy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Nuñez Park in San Bernardino boasts a baseball field, swimming pool and playground where the littlest of humans climb, swing and slide. Sometimes, Ma Carmen Gonzalez, who’s lived in the community for 18 years, will stand at its corner and take in the scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What she hears, however, are the groans of diesel truck engines, laboring past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent day, she counted 45 big rigs rumbling by in less than 30 minutes. Those trucks, which largely run on diesel, help contribute to \u003ca href=\"https://www.lung.org/research/sota/city-rankings/states/california/san-bernardino\">San Bernardino’s failing grade for air quality\u003c/a>, according to the American Lung Association. It is some of the worst in the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a lot of problems with asthma, cancer, allergies,” said Gonzalez, who is an organizer with the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why she’s advocating for \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/advanced-clean-fleets\">proposed regulation to accelerate the transition to zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks\u003c/a> in the state within the next two decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Air Resources Board will vote on the plan this week, which would phase out diesel truck fleets, from Amazon delivery vans to garbage trucks to big rigs, in an effort to clean up toxic air quality and fight climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Trucks only represent 6% of vehicles on the road, but represent a disproportionate amount of emissions,” said Sydney Vergis, who worked on the rules for CARB as a division chief. The agency estimates that the regulation, if passed, would save the state $26.5 billion in health costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The truck regulation would:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Require highly polluting drayage trucks, which transport shipping containers from ports and rail yards, to be 100% zero-emission by 2035.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Mandate that municipalities and state agencies electrify their fleets of trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles, either by having 50% of their new purchases be electric after 2024 and 100% after 2027, or by gradually increasing the percentage of electric vehicles in their fleets until they are completely zero-emission by 2042.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Also:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Federal and large commercial fleets (defined as comprising more than 50 trucks or generating more than $50 million in annual revenue) can choose to either buy only zero-emission vehicles after 2024 or gradually transition, reaching 100% by 2042.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The rules would require manufacturers to sell only zero-emission trucks by 2036.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The requirements would not apply to smaller companies.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>California’s more than \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/52C8CwpkPvsR7wDyiVmCsN?domain=ucsusa.org\">1.8 million commercial trucks are responsible for more than a quarter of its greenhouse gas pollution from transportation (PDF)\u003c/a>, more than 60% of smog-forming nitrogen oxides and more than 55% of fine particulate pollution from vehicles, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists; this pollution, known as PM 2.5, harms both heart and lung health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposal builds on the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/fact-sheets/advanced-clean-trucks-fact-sheet\">Advanced Clean Trucks rule\u003c/a>, which requires that truck makers gradually increase the percentage of electric trucks they sell in California in the coming years. California passed that regulation in 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sam Wilson, senior vehicles analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said passage of the proposed rule would be a win — not only for the environment, but for health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benefits would be “largely concentrated in disproportionately impacted communities, which is really where we need to be focusing our work,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Chris Shimoda, senior vice president of government affairs for the California Trucking Association, has concerns. He’s worried there will be insufficient charging infrastructure for electric trucks, particularly public charging stations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shimoda said he’s worked with CARB for more than 10 years on various regulations, but “I have never had a rule proposed by the Air Board that nearly 100% of our membership says cannot be accomplished.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bob Ramorino, president of Roadstar Trucking in Hayward, says he’s supportive of the goals of the regulation, but “the timeline is very, very difficult to achieve.” He’s particularly concerned there will not be enough power to meet the demand for charging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gonzalez of San Bernardino would like even more and stronger regulation. “My community suffers the ravages of discrimination,” she said. “We see other very beautiful places and cities that don’t have trucks, that don’t have nearby warehouses. But we do, and this is reflected in our health.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Nuñez Park in San Bernardino boasts a baseball field, swimming pool and playground where the littlest of humans climb, swing and slide. Sometimes, Ma Carmen Gonzalez, who’s lived in the community for 18 years, will stand at its corner and take in the scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What she hears, however, are the groans of diesel truck engines, laboring past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent day, she counted 45 big rigs rumbling by in less than 30 minutes. Those trucks, which largely run on diesel, help contribute to \u003ca href=\"https://www.lung.org/research/sota/city-rankings/states/california/san-bernardino\">San Bernardino’s failing grade for air quality\u003c/a>, according to the American Lung Association. It is some of the worst in the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a lot of problems with asthma, cancer, allergies,” said Gonzalez, who is an organizer with the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why she’s advocating for \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/advanced-clean-fleets\">proposed regulation to accelerate the transition to zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks\u003c/a> in the state within the next two decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Air Resources Board will vote on the plan this week, which would phase out diesel truck fleets, from Amazon delivery vans to garbage trucks to big rigs, in an effort to clean up toxic air quality and fight climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Trucks only represent 6% of vehicles on the road, but represent a disproportionate amount of emissions,” said Sydney Vergis, who worked on the rules for CARB as a division chief. The agency estimates that the regulation, if passed, would save the state $26.5 billion in health costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The truck regulation would:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Require highly polluting drayage trucks, which transport shipping containers from ports and rail yards, to be 100% zero-emission by 2035.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Mandate that municipalities and state agencies electrify their fleets of trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles, either by having 50% of their new purchases be electric after 2024 and 100% after 2027, or by gradually increasing the percentage of electric vehicles in their fleets until they are completely zero-emission by 2042.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Also:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Federal and large commercial fleets (defined as comprising more than 50 trucks or generating more than $50 million in annual revenue) can choose to either buy only zero-emission vehicles after 2024 or gradually transition, reaching 100% by 2042.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The rules would require manufacturers to sell only zero-emission trucks by 2036.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The requirements would not apply to smaller companies.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>California’s more than \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/52C8CwpkPvsR7wDyiVmCsN?domain=ucsusa.org\">1.8 million commercial trucks are responsible for more than a quarter of its greenhouse gas pollution from transportation (PDF)\u003c/a>, more than 60% of smog-forming nitrogen oxides and more than 55% of fine particulate pollution from vehicles, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists; this pollution, known as PM 2.5, harms both heart and lung health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposal builds on the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/fact-sheets/advanced-clean-trucks-fact-sheet\">Advanced Clean Trucks rule\u003c/a>, which requires that truck makers gradually increase the percentage of electric trucks they sell in California in the coming years. California passed that regulation in 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sam Wilson, senior vehicles analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said passage of the proposed rule would be a win — not only for the environment, but for health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benefits would be “largely concentrated in disproportionately impacted communities, which is really where we need to be focusing our work,” Wilson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Chris Shimoda, senior vice president of government affairs for the California Trucking Association, has concerns. He’s worried there will be insufficient charging infrastructure for electric trucks, particularly public charging stations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shimoda said he’s worked with CARB for more than 10 years on various regulations, but “I have never had a rule proposed by the Air Board that nearly 100% of our membership says cannot be accomplished.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bob Ramorino, president of Roadstar Trucking in Hayward, says he’s supportive of the goals of the regulation, but “the timeline is very, very difficult to achieve.” He’s particularly concerned there will not be enough power to meet the demand for charging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gonzalez of San Bernardino would like even more and stronger regulation. “My community suffers the ravages of discrimination,” she said. “We see other very beautiful places and cities that don’t have trucks, that don’t have nearby warehouses. But we do, and this is reflected in our health.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Here's Why Wildfire Experts Are Worried About an EPA Plan for Cleaner Air",
"headTitle": "Here’s Why Wildfire Experts Are Worried About an EPA Plan for Cleaner Air | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Few laws have been as successful, or saved the United States as much money, as the \u003ca href=\"https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL30853\">Clean Air Act (PDF)\u003c/a>. First enacted in 1955, the act was a response to alarming disasters like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5922205/\">Donora Smog\u003c/a> of 1948 in Western Pennsylvania and 1952’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-london-20615186\">Great Smog of London\u003c/a>, where thick dirty air from factories and vehicles enveloped communities for days and caused widespread deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress intended for the act to be frequently reevaluated and, if necessary, updated. The Environmental Protection Agency sets legal limits for how much pollution air districts are allowed to let into the air. Currently, the EPA is proposing tightening the standard for tiny particulates floating in the air, originating from motors, engines and fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Updating and tightening the standard is very popular among public health professionals, air regulators and the environmental justice community, who point to a mountain of evidence that this pollution takes lives early.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California Attorney General Rob Bonta, along \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/2023-03-28%20AGO%20Coalition%20-%20PM%20NAAQS%20Comment%20Letter.pdf\">with 17 other attorneys general, also supports limit tightening (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many in the environmental justice community, concerned about the disproportionate air pollution burden that many lower-income communities and communities of color live with, would like to see standards tightened even further. In California, that’s especially true in the San Joaquin Valley and the South Coast Air Basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We should have had lowered standards years ago. It’s a relief to see it now being proposed,” said Genevieve Amsalem, research and policy director at the Central California Environmental Justice Network. “Any time that you lower that standard, you’re going to be saving lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She considers bad air the region’s biggest environmental public health threat, one that especially affects communities of color.[pullquote size='medium' align='left' citation=\"Genevieve Amsalem, research and policy director, Central California Environmental Justice Network\"]‘Everyone knows a parent who has brought their baby, or their 2-year-old, into the ER because they couldn’t breathe. You know, the baby’s turning blue. It’s a story you hear across generations.’[/pullquote]“Everyone knows a parent who has brought their baby, or their 2-year-old, into the ER because they couldn’t breathe. You know, the baby’s turning blue,” Amsalem said. “It’s a story you hear across generations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data backs up this impression: Counties in the San Joaquin Valley consistently have among the \u003ca href=\"https://californiahealthline.org/news/dirty-air-and-disasters-sending-kids-to-the-er-for-asthma/\">worst rates of childhood asthma\u003c/a> in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are worries among the fire science community that the EPA’s proposed rule could have its opposite intended effect. They worry it may leave the state with ultimately worse air in the long run by stifling the use of prescribed fire. The ultimate outcome will affect everyone living in California and beyond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Wildfire is really challenging the paradigm that is at the core of the Clean Air Act — that emissions can be controlled,” said Michael Wara, an energy and climate scholar at Stanford University in \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA1wg9yzGxM&t=32s\">a presentation to students and researchers\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Wildfire emissions are not being successfully controlled. They’re growing,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Clean Air Act was written during a time when smokestack air pollution was the key problem standing in the way of healthy air, and the U.S. Forest Service could seemingly put any wildfire out by \u003ca href=\"https://foresthistory.org/research-explore/us-forest-service-history/policy-and-law/fire-u-s-forest-service/u-s-forest-service-fire-suppression/#:~:text=In%201935%2C%20the%20Forest%20Service,eliminate%20fire%20from%20the%20landscape.\">10 a.m. the next day\u003c/a>. All over the country, wildfires bent more or less easily to the will of firefighters, and the big sources of pollution could be regulated at the emission’s source. But that was a different climate reality.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Clean air keeps people out of hospitals\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Today, with \u003ca href=\"https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44840/4\">emissions from the worst pollutants down by more than 70% (PDF)\u003c/a>, the EPA estimates \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/benefits-and-costs-clean-air-act-1990-2020-second-prospective-study#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20Clean%20Air,reductions%20in%20ambient%20particulate%20matter\">the Clean Air Act saves 230,000 lives annually\u003c/a> and hundreds of thousands more from asthma, bronchitis and heart attacks. Public health experts estimate the benefits of all these lives saved and hospital visits avoided into the \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/benefits-and-costs-clean-air-act-1970-1990-study-design-and-summary-results\">many trillions of dollars\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfires are now a major producer of both carbon emissions and tiny specks of sooty pollutants known as PM 2.5. A 2022 study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research found that \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29623-8\">wildfire pollution was beginning to reverse decades of clean air gains\u003c/a>. (Researchers at Stanford in 2020 had \u003ca href=\"https://escholarship.org/content/qt5134m9d8/qt5134m9d8.pdf?t=qpc4ro\">similar findings [PDF]\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA’s plan would update its standard for PM 2.5.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" tag=\"air-quality\"]Shorthand for “particulate matter of 2.5 microns in size or less,” PM 2.5 is a class of pollutants based on dimensions rather than origin or chemical makeup. It would take about 30 of them lined up to cross the width of a human hair. It’s their size that’s the key problem: It allows them to get deep into the lungs and even cross into the bloodstream, causing heart and respiratory problems. In short, it’s a terrible pollutant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public comment on the proposal closed late last month, and the EPA is now deciding whether and how to implement revisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA estimates \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/epa-researchers-contribute-american-thoracic-society-workshop-report-wildland-fire\">a third of the PM 2.5 we breathe in this country is from wildfires\u003c/a>. For those in the West during wildfire season, it can be 90%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if wildfire trends continue and worsen, as climate models suggest they will, then we’ve seen nothing yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To avoid the worst outcomes, Wara of Stanford points to the need to dramatically increase the use of prescribed fire in pyro-adapted landscapes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of the best hopes that we have for reducing public health impacts from wildfire and [general] impacts from wildfire have to do with substituting prescribed fire emission for high-intensity wildfire emission,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The rub: Wildfire smoke vs. prescribed fire smoke\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The EPA enforces its clean air standards. If air districts do not achieve these clean-air goals, then the EPA can take over air permitting within a district and even impose a ban on new federal highway grants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, EPA officials recognize that sometimes air districts are out of compliance through no fault of their own. In this case, they are allowed to file for an “exceptional event.” In this bureaucratic process, the “event” is linked to the cause of pollution going over the legal limit. It is meant for events that are unforeseeable and are unlikely to occur in the same location again, like a volcanic explosion. If the link can be made, then emissions from that event can be subtracted from the total, and the air district is no longer in trouble with the EPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To use an analogy, if you couldn’t pay off your credit card bill some month because you had an unforeseen emergency expense, this would be the process by which you might convince the credit card company to waive that charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970817\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1970817\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view shows neighborhoods enshrouded in smoke as the Bobcat Fire advances toward foothill cities and new evacuation order go into effect on September 13, 2020 in Monrovia, California.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view shows neighborhoods in Monrovia enshrouded in smoke from the Bobcat Fire on Sept. 13, 2020. \u003ccite>(David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It is a long, technically involved process. A California Air Resources Board (CARB) \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-11/2020_Northern_California_EE_Full_Demo_Final.pdf\">exceptional events filing (PDF)\u003c/a> for ozone concentrations during the Northern California wildfires of 2020 runs 228 pages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The problem, as seen by many in the wildfire science community, is that while this process essentially means air districts are not on the hook for wildfire smoke, they are on the hook for prescribed fire smoke. And prescribed fire — the most affordable, effective inoculation against future wildfires — has never been used as a basis for an exceptional event in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But fire scientists and those in fire agencies worry this new rule will stifle the state and federal plans to expand the use of prescribed fire as a core strategy to stem out-of-control wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve got to start doing larger prescribed burns if we want to make a difference to what is actually happening on our landscape,” said Scott Stephens, fire science professor at UC Berkeley. “That just means there’s going to be more smoke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pro-prescribed-fire groups, including the National Association of Forest Service Retirees, have \u003ca href=\"https://nafsr.org/advocacy/2023/031023%20NAFSR%20response%20to%20EPA%20PM2.5%20rule%20change.pdf\">submitted comments detailing their concern (PDF)\u003c/a> that the proposed rule “will reduce the Nation’s ability to implement strategies intended to reduce unwanted wildfire effects on communities and wildlands, including barriers to increasing the pace and scale of prescribed burning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976585\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1998px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1976585\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f.jpg\" alt=\"A firefighter lights a prescribed burn in Humboldt County to reduce the underbrush without killing trees.\" width=\"1998\" height=\"1499\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f.jpg 1998w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1998px) 100vw, 1998px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prescribed burns, like this one in Humboldt County, reduce the underbrush without destroying trees. \u003ccite>(Lenya Quinn-Davidson/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A large group of fire specialists, including professors, cultural burners and ecologists, wrote in a comment letter to the EPA that its plan “would put the EPA on the wrong side of policies and actions planned by federal, state, local and Tribal entities to address the wildfire crisis and ultimately, to reduce harmful PM2.5 emissions and impacts by reducing wildfire smoke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smoke from prescribed fires is less intense and less damaging than smoke from wildfires. Many scientists view it as \u003ca href=\"https://www.lung.org/policy-advocacy/healthy-air-campaign/prescribed-fire-report#:~:text=Prescribed%20burns%20can%20be%20used,supporting%20ecosystem%20health%20and%20resiliency.\">a protective trade-off\u003c/a> — some pollution now in exchange for greater fire safety (and less pollution) in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Air districts supportive, with qualifications\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Both the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/carb-statement-us-epa-proposal-strengthen-health-based-standards-fine-particulate-matter\">California Air Resources Board\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/communications-and-outreach/publications/news-releases/2023/pmnaaqs_230105_2023_001-pdf.pdf?la=en\">Bay Area Air Quality Management District (PDF)\u003c/a> have submitted comments supporting a tightening of the PM 2.5 standard. In interviews with KQED, regulators from both organizations also expressed support for prescribed burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Charles Knoderer, meteorologist at BAAQMD, said that the air district views prescribed burning as a partner and ally in lowering the risk of wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can control when they’re doing the burning and we can minimize the amount of smoke that’s released,” he said. “Wildfires will put out a ton more smoke, and at that point there’s really no controlling it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither Bay Area nor California air regulators seem to share the worries of the fire community that the EPA will hamper the increased use of prescribed fire, however.[pullquote size='medium' align='left' citation=\"Charles Knoderer, meteorologist, Bay Area Air Quality Management District\"]‘We can control when they’re doing the burning and we can minimize the amount of smoke that’s released. Wildfires will put out a ton more smoke, and at that point there’s really no controlling it.’[/pullquote]Edie Chang, deputy executive officer at CARB, said her agency has heard from the prescribed-fire community and has brought up the issue in comments to the EPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying to see how we can streamline or make suggestions for how EPA might modify their policies or their guidance to help us be able to balance the increased use of prescribed fire that we need for forest management, for managing and reducing the catastrophic wildfires that we experience in California,” said Chang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She expressed hope that the rule’s implementation phase, which it now heads into, would be the time for nitty-gritty details to be worked out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though they can be expunged from the data, residents are still feeling [the effects of wildfire] very much so,” said Amsalem, of the Central California Environmental Justice Network. She hopes agencies will work out this issue, she said, “because we do need to do more prescribed burning to reduce the catastrophic events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>EPA’s proposed workaround leaves burners skeptical\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The EPA also seems aware of these concerns. In its proposed rule, it says it acknowledges stakeholder concerns about the importance of prescribed fire and intends to work with stakeholders to address these issues. It also says \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2019-08/documents/ee_prescribed_fire_final_guidance_-_august_2019.pdf\">prescribed fires have the potential to qualify for exceptional events (PDF)\u003c/a>, which could encourage their continued and expanded use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, this has environmental lawyers very concerned. Sara Clark of the law firm Shute, Mihaly and Weinberger works with nonprofit organizations and supports prescribed fire and Indigenous cultural burners. She thinks the EPA’s reasoning as written might not hold up under a judge’s evaluation.[aside label=\"More Stories\" tag=\"prescribed-burning\"]“[The EPA] does a lot of linguistic acrobatics to try and clarify how a prescribed fire is … not reasonably preventable or controllable. But it’s called a ‘controlled burn,’” said Clark. “I’m concerned about the legal underpinnings there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also believes that the time and technical expertise needed to file for an exceptional event exemption would make air regulators wary of using it. Extensive documentation and analysis is needed to submit for an exceptional events determination from CARB or the EPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent Government Accountability Office report echoes these concerns. The report says \u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-104723.pdf\">the EPA could do a better job working with other agencies to reduce impacts from wildfires (PDF)\u003c/a>, including making it easier to conduct prescribed fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stakeholders interviewed by the GAO said that state and local agencies aren’t likely to use the exceptional events provision for prescribed burns because “the agencies would not likely approve prescribed burns that could cause National Ambient Air Quality Standards exceedances in the first place.” And they said that “exceptional event demonstrations are technically complicated and resource intensive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Put another way, it’s more likely that prescribed burns would never happen if air regulators thought they might have to file for an exceptional event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is also legally uncharted, or nearly uncharted, territory. \u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-104723.pdf\">The EPA has received only one exceptional events demonstration for a prescribed burn (PDF)\u003c/a> — too much ozone was associated with prescribed burns in the Flint Hills of Kansas in December 2012. But since then, no tribal, state or local agency has submitted an exceptional event demonstration for a prescribed burn, according to EPA officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Should wildfires be considered exceptional?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The EPA’s proposed rule is based in part on the recommendations of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, a collection of public health experts. In their \u003ca href=\"https://www.lawandenvironment.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2022/03/casac-review-of-the-epas-policy-assessment-for-the-reconsideration-of-the-national-ambient-air-quality-standards-for-particulate-matter-external-review-draft-october-2021.pdf?utm_source=mondaq&utm_medium=syndication&utm_content=inarticlelink&utm_campaign=article\">letter sent last spring to EPA administrator Michael Regan (PDF)\u003c/a>, they questioned whether even wildfires ought to be routinely considered exceptional events, considering they are the result of human-caused climate change, fire suppression and forest management policies and, often, problems with equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In some parts of the country, wildfires are no longer ‘exceptional’ The dramatic increase in wildfires over the last decade is not natural,” the authors write, pointing to forest management, climate change and utility power lines. “These are (in theory) at least partially controllable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In UC Berkeley’s Stephens’ view, the rule as proposed is an unacceptable passing of the buck.[pullquote size='medium' align='left' citation=\"Scott Stephens, fire science professor, UC Berkeley\"]‘If you do proactive work like prescribed burning, you have to justify it through a rule that is onerous. But if a wildfire is occurring, causing damage to people, burning down homes, no one’s accountable. I just don’t see how that can work.’[/pullquote]“If you do proactive work like prescribed burning, you have to justify it through a rule that is onerous,” he said. “But if a wildfire is occurring, causing damage to people, burning down homes, no one’s accountable. I just don’t see how that can work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, for those affected by the worst air quality in the state, pollution is damaging whether it’s from a diesel engine, a prescribed fire or a catastrophic wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most people interviewed for this story said they hope that as the EPA decides how to implement the rule over the course of this year, it will find a route that both protects public health from human-made sources like smokestacks and tailpipes and encourages proactive wildfire protection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The key decision is going to be what happens in the U.S. EPA, PM 2.5 rulemaking. It’s really going to set the course for what is allowed or not allowed on the part of air districts over the next five to 10 years,” said Stanford’s Wara. He hopes for a path that can support both priorities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But if we just act as if it’s the year 2000 or sometime in the 1990s or even 1970 and the U.S. Forest Service reigned supreme over wildfire in the West?” he said. “We are not going to get this outcome.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Few laws have been as successful, or saved the United States as much money, as the \u003ca href=\"https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL30853\">Clean Air Act (PDF)\u003c/a>. First enacted in 1955, the act was a response to alarming disasters like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5922205/\">Donora Smog\u003c/a> of 1948 in Western Pennsylvania and 1952’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-london-20615186\">Great Smog of London\u003c/a>, where thick dirty air from factories and vehicles enveloped communities for days and caused widespread deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress intended for the act to be frequently reevaluated and, if necessary, updated. The Environmental Protection Agency sets legal limits for how much pollution air districts are allowed to let into the air. Currently, the EPA is proposing tightening the standard for tiny particulates floating in the air, originating from motors, engines and fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Updating and tightening the standard is very popular among public health professionals, air regulators and the environmental justice community, who point to a mountain of evidence that this pollution takes lives early.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California Attorney General Rob Bonta, along \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/2023-03-28%20AGO%20Coalition%20-%20PM%20NAAQS%20Comment%20Letter.pdf\">with 17 other attorneys general, also supports limit tightening (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many in the environmental justice community, concerned about the disproportionate air pollution burden that many lower-income communities and communities of color live with, would like to see standards tightened even further. In California, that’s especially true in the San Joaquin Valley and the South Coast Air Basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We should have had lowered standards years ago. It’s a relief to see it now being proposed,” said Genevieve Amsalem, research and policy director at the Central California Environmental Justice Network. “Any time that you lower that standard, you’re going to be saving lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She considers bad air the region’s biggest environmental public health threat, one that especially affects communities of color.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Everyone knows a parent who has brought their baby, or their 2-year-old, into the ER because they couldn’t breathe. You know, the baby’s turning blue. It’s a story you hear across generations.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Everyone knows a parent who has brought their baby, or their 2-year-old, into the ER because they couldn’t breathe. You know, the baby’s turning blue,” Amsalem said. “It’s a story you hear across generations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data backs up this impression: Counties in the San Joaquin Valley consistently have among the \u003ca href=\"https://californiahealthline.org/news/dirty-air-and-disasters-sending-kids-to-the-er-for-asthma/\">worst rates of childhood asthma\u003c/a> in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there are worries among the fire science community that the EPA’s proposed rule could have its opposite intended effect. They worry it may leave the state with ultimately worse air in the long run by stifling the use of prescribed fire. The ultimate outcome will affect everyone living in California and beyond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Wildfire is really challenging the paradigm that is at the core of the Clean Air Act — that emissions can be controlled,” said Michael Wara, an energy and climate scholar at Stanford University in \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA1wg9yzGxM&t=32s\">a presentation to students and researchers\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Wildfire emissions are not being successfully controlled. They’re growing,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Clean Air Act was written during a time when smokestack air pollution was the key problem standing in the way of healthy air, and the U.S. Forest Service could seemingly put any wildfire out by \u003ca href=\"https://foresthistory.org/research-explore/us-forest-service-history/policy-and-law/fire-u-s-forest-service/u-s-forest-service-fire-suppression/#:~:text=In%201935%2C%20the%20Forest%20Service,eliminate%20fire%20from%20the%20landscape.\">10 a.m. the next day\u003c/a>. All over the country, wildfires bent more or less easily to the will of firefighters, and the big sources of pollution could be regulated at the emission’s source. But that was a different climate reality.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Clean air keeps people out of hospitals\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Today, with \u003ca href=\"https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44840/4\">emissions from the worst pollutants down by more than 70% (PDF)\u003c/a>, the EPA estimates \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/benefits-and-costs-clean-air-act-1990-2020-second-prospective-study#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20Clean%20Air,reductions%20in%20ambient%20particulate%20matter\">the Clean Air Act saves 230,000 lives annually\u003c/a> and hundreds of thousands more from asthma, bronchitis and heart attacks. Public health experts estimate the benefits of all these lives saved and hospital visits avoided into the \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/benefits-and-costs-clean-air-act-1970-1990-study-design-and-summary-results\">many trillions of dollars\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfires are now a major producer of both carbon emissions and tiny specks of sooty pollutants known as PM 2.5. A 2022 study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research found that \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29623-8\">wildfire pollution was beginning to reverse decades of clean air gains\u003c/a>. (Researchers at Stanford in 2020 had \u003ca href=\"https://escholarship.org/content/qt5134m9d8/qt5134m9d8.pdf?t=qpc4ro\">similar findings [PDF]\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA’s plan would update its standard for PM 2.5.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Shorthand for “particulate matter of 2.5 microns in size or less,” PM 2.5 is a class of pollutants based on dimensions rather than origin or chemical makeup. It would take about 30 of them lined up to cross the width of a human hair. It’s their size that’s the key problem: It allows them to get deep into the lungs and even cross into the bloodstream, causing heart and respiratory problems. In short, it’s a terrible pollutant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public comment on the proposal closed late last month, and the EPA is now deciding whether and how to implement revisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA estimates \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/epa-researchers-contribute-american-thoracic-society-workshop-report-wildland-fire\">a third of the PM 2.5 we breathe in this country is from wildfires\u003c/a>. For those in the West during wildfire season, it can be 90%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if wildfire trends continue and worsen, as climate models suggest they will, then we’ve seen nothing yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To avoid the worst outcomes, Wara of Stanford points to the need to dramatically increase the use of prescribed fire in pyro-adapted landscapes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of the best hopes that we have for reducing public health impacts from wildfire and [general] impacts from wildfire have to do with substituting prescribed fire emission for high-intensity wildfire emission,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The rub: Wildfire smoke vs. prescribed fire smoke\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The EPA enforces its clean air standards. If air districts do not achieve these clean-air goals, then the EPA can take over air permitting within a district and even impose a ban on new federal highway grants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, EPA officials recognize that sometimes air districts are out of compliance through no fault of their own. In this case, they are allowed to file for an “exceptional event.” In this bureaucratic process, the “event” is linked to the cause of pollution going over the legal limit. It is meant for events that are unforeseeable and are unlikely to occur in the same location again, like a volcanic explosion. If the link can be made, then emissions from that event can be subtracted from the total, and the air district is no longer in trouble with the EPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To use an analogy, if you couldn’t pay off your credit card bill some month because you had an unforeseen emergency expense, this would be the process by which you might convince the credit card company to waive that charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1970817\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1970817\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view shows neighborhoods enshrouded in smoke as the Bobcat Fire advances toward foothill cities and new evacuation order go into effect on September 13, 2020 in Monrovia, California.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/11/gettyimages-1228496051-11803c34ee7e287ff491ad1597467efb869d819a-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view shows neighborhoods in Monrovia enshrouded in smoke from the Bobcat Fire on Sept. 13, 2020. \u003ccite>(David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It is a long, technically involved process. A California Air Resources Board (CARB) \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-11/2020_Northern_California_EE_Full_Demo_Final.pdf\">exceptional events filing (PDF)\u003c/a> for ozone concentrations during the Northern California wildfires of 2020 runs 228 pages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The problem, as seen by many in the wildfire science community, is that while this process essentially means air districts are not on the hook for wildfire smoke, they are on the hook for prescribed fire smoke. And prescribed fire — the most affordable, effective inoculation against future wildfires — has never been used as a basis for an exceptional event in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But fire scientists and those in fire agencies worry this new rule will stifle the state and federal plans to expand the use of prescribed fire as a core strategy to stem out-of-control wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve got to start doing larger prescribed burns if we want to make a difference to what is actually happening on our landscape,” said Scott Stephens, fire science professor at UC Berkeley. “That just means there’s going to be more smoke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pro-prescribed-fire groups, including the National Association of Forest Service Retirees, have \u003ca href=\"https://nafsr.org/advocacy/2023/031023%20NAFSR%20response%20to%20EPA%20PM2.5%20rule%20change.pdf\">submitted comments detailing their concern (PDF)\u003c/a> that the proposed rule “will reduce the Nation’s ability to implement strategies intended to reduce unwanted wildfire effects on communities and wildlands, including barriers to increasing the pace and scale of prescribed burning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976585\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1998px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1976585\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f.jpg\" alt=\"A firefighter lights a prescribed burn in Humboldt County to reduce the underbrush without killing trees.\" width=\"1998\" height=\"1499\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f.jpg 1998w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/winter-oak-woodland-burning-2b67dc9298069f3e95da35a79dcd1b2aa432876f-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1998px) 100vw, 1998px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prescribed burns, like this one in Humboldt County, reduce the underbrush without destroying trees. \u003ccite>(Lenya Quinn-Davidson/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A large group of fire specialists, including professors, cultural burners and ecologists, wrote in a comment letter to the EPA that its plan “would put the EPA on the wrong side of policies and actions planned by federal, state, local and Tribal entities to address the wildfire crisis and ultimately, to reduce harmful PM2.5 emissions and impacts by reducing wildfire smoke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smoke from prescribed fires is less intense and less damaging than smoke from wildfires. Many scientists view it as \u003ca href=\"https://www.lung.org/policy-advocacy/healthy-air-campaign/prescribed-fire-report#:~:text=Prescribed%20burns%20can%20be%20used,supporting%20ecosystem%20health%20and%20resiliency.\">a protective trade-off\u003c/a> — some pollution now in exchange for greater fire safety (and less pollution) in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Air districts supportive, with qualifications\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Both the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/carb-statement-us-epa-proposal-strengthen-health-based-standards-fine-particulate-matter\">California Air Resources Board\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/communications-and-outreach/publications/news-releases/2023/pmnaaqs_230105_2023_001-pdf.pdf?la=en\">Bay Area Air Quality Management District (PDF)\u003c/a> have submitted comments supporting a tightening of the PM 2.5 standard. In interviews with KQED, regulators from both organizations also expressed support for prescribed burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Charles Knoderer, meteorologist at BAAQMD, said that the air district views prescribed burning as a partner and ally in lowering the risk of wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can control when they’re doing the burning and we can minimize the amount of smoke that’s released,” he said. “Wildfires will put out a ton more smoke, and at that point there’s really no controlling it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither Bay Area nor California air regulators seem to share the worries of the fire community that the EPA will hamper the increased use of prescribed fire, however.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We can control when they’re doing the burning and we can minimize the amount of smoke that’s released. Wildfires will put out a ton more smoke, and at that point there’s really no controlling it.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Edie Chang, deputy executive officer at CARB, said her agency has heard from the prescribed-fire community and has brought up the issue in comments to the EPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying to see how we can streamline or make suggestions for how EPA might modify their policies or their guidance to help us be able to balance the increased use of prescribed fire that we need for forest management, for managing and reducing the catastrophic wildfires that we experience in California,” said Chang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She expressed hope that the rule’s implementation phase, which it now heads into, would be the time for nitty-gritty details to be worked out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though they can be expunged from the data, residents are still feeling [the effects of wildfire] very much so,” said Amsalem, of the Central California Environmental Justice Network. She hopes agencies will work out this issue, she said, “because we do need to do more prescribed burning to reduce the catastrophic events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>EPA’s proposed workaround leaves burners skeptical\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The EPA also seems aware of these concerns. In its proposed rule, it says it acknowledges stakeholder concerns about the importance of prescribed fire and intends to work with stakeholders to address these issues. It also says \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2019-08/documents/ee_prescribed_fire_final_guidance_-_august_2019.pdf\">prescribed fires have the potential to qualify for exceptional events (PDF)\u003c/a>, which could encourage their continued and expanded use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, this has environmental lawyers very concerned. Sara Clark of the law firm Shute, Mihaly and Weinberger works with nonprofit organizations and supports prescribed fire and Indigenous cultural burners. She thinks the EPA’s reasoning as written might not hold up under a judge’s evaluation.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“[The EPA] does a lot of linguistic acrobatics to try and clarify how a prescribed fire is … not reasonably preventable or controllable. But it’s called a ‘controlled burn,’” said Clark. “I’m concerned about the legal underpinnings there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also believes that the time and technical expertise needed to file for an exceptional event exemption would make air regulators wary of using it. Extensive documentation and analysis is needed to submit for an exceptional events determination from CARB or the EPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent Government Accountability Office report echoes these concerns. The report says \u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-104723.pdf\">the EPA could do a better job working with other agencies to reduce impacts from wildfires (PDF)\u003c/a>, including making it easier to conduct prescribed fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stakeholders interviewed by the GAO said that state and local agencies aren’t likely to use the exceptional events provision for prescribed burns because “the agencies would not likely approve prescribed burns that could cause National Ambient Air Quality Standards exceedances in the first place.” And they said that “exceptional event demonstrations are technically complicated and resource intensive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Put another way, it’s more likely that prescribed burns would never happen if air regulators thought they might have to file for an exceptional event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is also legally uncharted, or nearly uncharted, territory. \u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-104723.pdf\">The EPA has received only one exceptional events demonstration for a prescribed burn (PDF)\u003c/a> — too much ozone was associated with prescribed burns in the Flint Hills of Kansas in December 2012. But since then, no tribal, state or local agency has submitted an exceptional event demonstration for a prescribed burn, according to EPA officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Should wildfires be considered exceptional?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The EPA’s proposed rule is based in part on the recommendations of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, a collection of public health experts. In their \u003ca href=\"https://www.lawandenvironment.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2022/03/casac-review-of-the-epas-policy-assessment-for-the-reconsideration-of-the-national-ambient-air-quality-standards-for-particulate-matter-external-review-draft-october-2021.pdf?utm_source=mondaq&utm_medium=syndication&utm_content=inarticlelink&utm_campaign=article\">letter sent last spring to EPA administrator Michael Regan (PDF)\u003c/a>, they questioned whether even wildfires ought to be routinely considered exceptional events, considering they are the result of human-caused climate change, fire suppression and forest management policies and, often, problems with equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In some parts of the country, wildfires are no longer ‘exceptional’ The dramatic increase in wildfires over the last decade is not natural,” the authors write, pointing to forest management, climate change and utility power lines. “These are (in theory) at least partially controllable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In UC Berkeley’s Stephens’ view, the rule as proposed is an unacceptable passing of the buck.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘If you do proactive work like prescribed burning, you have to justify it through a rule that is onerous. But if a wildfire is occurring, causing damage to people, burning down homes, no one’s accountable. I just don’t see how that can work.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“If you do proactive work like prescribed burning, you have to justify it through a rule that is onerous,” he said. “But if a wildfire is occurring, causing damage to people, burning down homes, no one’s accountable. I just don’t see how that can work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, for those affected by the worst air quality in the state, pollution is damaging whether it’s from a diesel engine, a prescribed fire or a catastrophic wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most people interviewed for this story said they hope that as the EPA decides how to implement the rule over the course of this year, it will find a route that both protects public health from human-made sources like smokestacks and tailpipes and encourages proactive wildfire protection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The key decision is going to be what happens in the U.S. EPA, PM 2.5 rulemaking. It’s really going to set the course for what is allowed or not allowed on the part of air districts over the next five to 10 years,” said Stanford’s Wara. He hopes for a path that can support both priorities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But if we just act as if it’s the year 2000 or sometime in the 1990s or even 1970 and the U.S. Forest Service reigned supreme over wildfire in the West?” he said. “We are not going to get this outcome.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"closealltabs": {
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
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"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
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"order": 9
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"hyphenacion": {
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"order": 15
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
},
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"title": "Latino USA",
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"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"source": "American Public Media"
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"masters-of-scale": {
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"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
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"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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},
"morning-edition": {
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
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"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
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"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
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"pbs-newshour": {
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
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},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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"planet-money": {
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"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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