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LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio, a member-supported public media network. For the latest national news from NPR and our live radio broadcast, visitMajor investigation shows local governments are increasingly exploiting a loophole in the Clean Air Act, leaving
“we may have a sort of stable, relatively rosy picture when it comes to our regulatory world in terms of air-quality trends,” said Vijay Limaye, a climate and health epidemiologist at the Natural Resources Defense Council , a nonprofit advocacy group.Matt Cowdrey, Mark Paiz and Kyle Ortega get ready to paddle out and surf Ocean Beach in San Francisco under an orange-red sky caused by wildfires on Sep. 9, 2020.
Meeting air-quality standards matters a lot to industry and politicians. Violations can add up to stricter, more costly and potentially unpopular pollution controls. At first, the rule was used most successfully in a handful of south-western communities where high winds created a recurring problem of dust pollution. Over time, local regulators have turned to exceptional events for wildfires more and more often to reach air-quality goals.
We analyzed data recorded at air monitors nationwide. For every U.S. county, on a day where the EPA excluded any data, we counted that day. Our analysis found that the total number of wildfire-related bad air days erased from regulatory consideration in counties nationwide was nearly double that of bad air days related to high winds: 236 compared to 121.
Stevens remembered doctors and nurses moving among patients under the menacing amber skies, N95 masks snug on their faces to protect against COVID-19 — and wildfire smoke. Officials at the California air resources board stress that state law works toward mitigating the effects of climate change, and state policies are supposed to minimize the risk of catastrophic fire.
Afterward, “I was starting to sense the emotional drain, from everyone having to go through this,” she said. She searched the internet with worry about how smoke could harm her children, then three and seven years old. “It would not be unreasonable” to boost spending significantly to manage public and private lands to minimize smoke, “something like what we think is reasonable when it comes to coal-fired power plants, which is billions of dollars per year,” he said. “Because the harms that are being created by the smoke are large.”
Walke of the NRDC agreed: “The worst possible outcome is lying to the American people about whether the air they breathe is safe orIn the early years after the exceptional events rule was added to law, the South Coast Air Quality Management District applied to remove some events from the record, including related to wildfires, winds, and fireworks.
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