The months of March and April are normally good months for breathing the air in the San Joaquin Valley. This year was not so good. On at least seven days during these two months the air from Fresno to Bakersfield was killing people.
The progress in cleaning our air has slowed dramatically the past several years. This should not happen when we are no where close to providing residents of the southern half of the San Joaquin Valley healthy air to breathe.
The Clean Air Act demands steady progress towards the federal health based standards. Our air board is impeding this progress. They don’t give a damn about doing their job except to say people should not idle their cars when dropping off their kids at school. If people actually followed their advice we would reduce NOx emissions by less than a quarter of a percent. It is all bull because they won’t regulate the real polluters such as the factory dairy industry and the big name oil companies. The air board need a smokescreen to hide their inaction, so they blame people idling their virtually emission free, electronically controlled engines. Never mind that the public is paying thousands of extra dollars for the privilege of driving in this polluted valley.
note: A mistake was made in the chart below. There were only 6 violations in 2013. This means the upward sloping trend line will be less steep but still positive in nature.
airqualityguy 