Air Pollution In San Joaquin Valley Causes, Mitigation Strategies

Air Pollution in San Joaquin Valley – Causes, Impacts and Mitigation Strategies
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Air Pollution in San Joaquin Valley – Causes, Impacts and Mitigation Strategies
Introduction
San Joaquin Valley has the highest air pollution potential and high rates of asthma in the country, making it to fail the federal health standards for both particulate matter (PM) and ozone (O3) pollution (Cisneros et al. 2017). San Joaquin Valley Air Basin (SJVAB) is comprised of eight counties, Sa Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced Madera, Fresno, Tulare, Kings, and Kern (San Joaquin Council of Governments, 2018). The main causes of excessive accumulation of O3 and PM are the neighboring mountain ranges of the valley’s topography, which are notorious for trapping air pollutants and the increased sources of pollution from fireplaces and wood-burning stoves, irrigation pumps and tractors, diesel-powered locomotives, and heavy traffic of trucks on Highway 99 and I-5 (United States Environment Protection Agency, 2019). These pollutants cause a number of health complications such as asthma and premature deaths among children. To mitigate the problem of air pollution in San Joaquin Valley, the stage government of California has collaborated with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to enact and implement a number of regulations and support research and development programs directed towards reducing emissions and understanding their health consequences and vulnerabilities, especially among children. This paper discusses the problem of air pollution in San Joaquin Valley by exploring the causes, impacts, and the strategies put in place to mitigate impacts of air pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter.
Causes
The challenges facing the valley in terms of vulnerability to air pollution are unparalleled by any other region in the United States. The meteorology and geography of the area are ideal for producing and accumulating smog (Sadredin, n.d). SJVAB has an inland Mediterranean climate characterized by dry and warm summers and cool nights with cooler winters and limited rain. Air quality is significantly affected by the location and rate of pollutant emission as well as topographic and climatic conditions such as wind direction, wind speed and air temperature gradients. The surrounding mountains act to trap air movements and prevent the dispersion of pollutants out of the valley. One of the main factors leading to the accumulation of O3 and PM is the adjacent mountain ranges of the valley’s topography, which trap air pollutants. The increased sources of pollution from fireplaces and wood-burning stoves, irrigation pumps and tractors, diesel-powered locomotives, and heavy traffic of trucks has also been blamed on increasing cases of air pollution in San Joaquin Valley (United States Environment Protection Agency, 2019). The region also experiences temperature inversions (warm dry air sitting over cooler air adjacent to the ground) most times of the year, which prevents vertical dispersion of air pollutants. These lower 10-meter winds in the region during strong summer inversions promote the accumulation of pollutants compared to when there are normal inversions (Iacobellis, Caya...