San Joaquin Valley’s Smog Threatens Sierra and Agriculture

There was a time, Simon Lakritz recalls, when he could see the snowcapped peaks of the Sierra Nevada from his San Joaquin Valley home.

Over the years, however, Lakritz, who has lived in the valley for 30 years, watched the horizon dissolve into a haze as smog obscured his vista.

“It used to be you could see the Sierra from my front yard,” Lakritz said. Now, although mountains are just an hour’s drive away, “it’s only once in a blue moon, when the wind is blowing just right, that you can see them.”

Like Lakritz, many San Joaquin Valley residents and air quality officials are becoming increasingly aware of the region’s air quality. Encircled by mountains and capped by a recurring layer of warm air that traps emissions, the valley is a natural smog caldron.

Since 1980, the valley’s population has grown by 450,000 people, and more people mean more cars, trucks, barbecues and fireplaces spewing pollutants into the air to be cooked by the summer sun.

Air pollution, especially ozone, has begun to threaten the valley’s $8-billion agricultural harvest. Ozone rarely kills plants, but it can cause them to lose leaves and buds sooner than normal. According to state estimates, smog caused more than $150 million in reduced crop yields last year.

‘The Worst . . . Problem’

“We have the potential of becoming the worst air pollution problem in the U.S., even worse than they have down in L.A.,” said Judy Andreen, Fresno County representative on the Basinwide Air Pollution Control Council, a panel representing eight San Joaquin Valley counties.

Valley smog also contributes to acid rain and fog, which forestry officials fear may one day lead to the destruction of forests and lakes in the southern Sierra Nevada.

“We don’t have any dead lakes or forests yet, but they are the most sensitive forests in the nation,” said Dr. John R. Holmes, a researcher with the state Air Resources Board.

Smog also threatens the region’s economic health in another way. In order to comply with the California Clean Air Act passed last November, air pollution officials in the valley must reduce emissions from factory smokestacks and other stationary sources by 15%--and develop plans for complying with federal smog limits--by 1991.

Local officials may also have to impose regulations that would impede economic growth and they have begun to consider air quality when approving land use plans.

Fresno County, for example, is weighing whether to restrict developments that encourage longer commutes.

“There’s always some potential for limiting of residential, commercial and industrial growth. . . . We have to look at everything in order attain those (clean air) goals,” said Robert C. Dowell, Fresno county air pollution control chief.

In Stanislaus County, officials are considering a fee on commercial and residential developers for cleaning up auto exhaust generated by motorists who use their shopping malls and housing tracts. Such fees are now imposed only on industrial sources of pollution, said Mark Boese, deputy air pollution control officer.

In Kings and Kern counties, companies that employ large numbers of people or require frequent deliveries may have to pay for air cleanup or minimize their emissions through car-pooling.

“The evaluation of air quality requires that we look at how we design communities. It’s not just a matter of how we regulate tailpipe and smokestack emissions,” said Bill Sessa, state Air Resources Board spokesman.

Smog levels in the valley had stabilized with tougher requirements for anti-smog devices on new cars and stricter regulation of industry in the last decade, Sessa said, but over the last three years, the added pollution from growth appears to have canceled out those gains. Ozone levels in the valley appear to be on the rise, having exceeded federal standards on 59 days in 1986 and 64 days in 1987.

The state Air Resources Board counts 2.5 million people living in the valley from Lodi in the north to Bakersfield in the south. Since 1980, the population has grown by 22%, and the state predicts that it will grow 40% more by 2005.

Much of the growth in the northern part of the valley has come from Bay Area residents looking for affordable housing. The cities of Stockton, Manteca, Tracy and Modesto are rapidly becoming Bay Area suburbs.

Half of the 12,000 people who moved to San Joaquin County last year commute to jobs in the Bay Area, said Lakhmir Grewal, director of the county air pollution control district.

The Bay Area may also be contributing directly to the valley’s growing air pollution problems. Studies have shown that smog from the Bay Area drifts through the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta or creeps over the Altamont Pass where Interstate 580 connects with the valley.

Bay Area smog officials concede that some of their impure air ends up in the valley, but they dispute its effects.

“I think everyone would agree the Bay Area contributes to (smog) exceedances in the Central Valley. But the question is how much,” said Robin DeMandel, a spokesman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

But the valley is not without its own industrial pollution. The southern San Joaquin Valley accounts for 64% of the state’s total oil production. In 1987, Kern County alone produced more than 250 million barrels from its 78 oil fields.

“If Kern County were a country, we would be the 16th largest oil producer in the world,” said Ed Welge, Kern County deputy for the state’s Division of Oil and Gas.

San Joaquin Valley oil, often referred to in the trade as “sour crude,” is heavier and more viscous than oil from other regions. Because of its high viscosity, steam generators are needed to loosen and pump the molasses-like oil to the surface. The steam generators dump a significant amount of exhaust into the valley air.

Some critics say the way air pollution is regulated in the valley contributes to the problem. Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area have regional air pollution control districts, but the valley’s air quality is regulated by eight independent agencies, one per county.

Smog is not confined by county boundaries, so any solution will require a regional approach, the critics say.

“We can continue to meet guidelines and still choke to death,” said Ken Bettencourt, a member of the Kings County Citizens for a Healthy Environment.

The main group working to improve regional cooperation, the basin control council, meets monthly, with one elected supervisor serving from each county. The group is only advisory.

‘Everyone Goes Home’

“We go, we meet and everyone goes home,” said Les Brown, the group’s chairman and a Kings County supervisor.

Nonetheless, the counties have agreed to produce the San Joaquin Valley Air Quality Study, a $9-million project initiated last year by a regional joint powers agency. Scheduled to be completed some time over the next decade, the study will measure the effect of various sources of smog and consider new regulations.

Bettencourt and others say the lack of regional control has led to the proliferation of another source of pollution: the small energy-producing plants known as cogenerators.

Cogeneration plants generate electricity along with heat or steam by burning a variety of fuels, including natural gas, garbage, wood and coal. Cogenerators supply canneries, garbage incinerators, factories and other businesses with heat or steam and use the rest of the steam to produce electricity.

There are 49 cogeneration facilities in California today, contrasted with only one in 1980. Another 116 projects are expected to be operating by 2000.

“Out of all the industrial development in the San Joaquin Valley, this is the biggest segment and consequently the most controversial,” said Sessa, from the state Air Resources Board.

Growing concern over smog in the valley has prompted many communities to oppose such projects. In Hanford, Kingsburg and Selma, proposed coal-burning cogeneration plants have touched off bitter battles between the communities and GWF Power Systems, the company behind the projects.

In Hanford, the dispute has led to the ousting of the mayor and two City Council members who approved the project. Attempting to ban the burning of coal within the city limits, the newly elected council is now tangled in a lawsuit with GWF.

The controversy has arisen despite assurances from the industry--which has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the official air pollution study--that cogeneration is cleaner than many other industries.

“Since there is seldom any desire to do anything to existing sources of pollution, the tendency is to deal with the new sources coming in. Cogeneration is always the new guy on the block,” said Jan Hamrin, executive director of the Independent Power Producers Assn.

The growing concern over air pollution has also led to a new alliance between environmentalists and farmers. Farmers were often regarded as part of the problem because of agricultural burning, dust from plowing and smog device exemptions for farming equipment.

But farmers are becoming increasingly aware of the effect of air pollution on their livelihoods, said Jim Verboon, Kings County Farm Bureau president. Verboon estimates that crop yields for cotton, grapes and citrus are reduced by 15% to 20% because of ozone pollution.

“We fought environmentalists in the past. But now we stand to suffer the most (from air pollution),” Verboon said. “In my opinion we’ll be the environmentalists of the future.”