Burns Me Up
Next time you find yourself coming down Highway 32 from Forest Ranch, look straight across the valley to the Mendocino Range and turn your head a bit to the left to glance at the Sutter Buttes. Chances are that you can't see either set of mountains clearly.
This is air pollution, and more specifically, particulate pollution. This is the nasty stuff that is hell on asthma sufferers and generally unhealthy for everyone else. To be blunt, it kills people, and contributes to more than 8,800 premature deaths each year state-wide. This means that these folks would have lived longer had they lived in a particulate pollution-free environment. This is more than twice the number of people killed in vehicle accidents.
Chico--beautiful "City of Trees," Bidwell Park Chico--has the third worst particulate air pollution in the state.
Contrary to popular belief, the burning of rice fields is not the primary culprit.
We are--Our cars, our backyard burn piles, our wood stoves and our fireplaces.
Alternatives exist for all of these--drive less, use wood stoves that are EPA approved, and decide that lighting a fire in the fireplace to simply create "mood" just isn't worth the environmental costs.
Luke Anderson wrote an excellent article in last week's News and Review outlining the issue of particulate pollution and why we all should be very concerned.
Those interested in learning more about the Air Quality Management District's time line for addressing Chico's air quality can attend a public meeting on Thursday, March 27 at 10 a.m. in the Chico City Council Chambers.
For more information on the health effects of air pollution, check out www.burningissues.org.
To view real-time data about air quality in Chico, go to www.bcaqmd.org and click on "Today's Conditions."