Photo courtesy of Flickr.
Today’s CBS news reports on Arvin, California, which has the dubious distinction of being the smoggiest place in the United States.
With all of the vineyards and orange groves in this agricultural area of Arvin, California, you’d never imagine that it would have the worst air pollution problems in the United States. The area actually creates very little air pollution of its own.
The issue is that it is surrounded by mountains, so it ends up trapping all of the air pollution from surrounding California metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, and even as far as San Francisco.
Doctors and public officials say asthma and other respiratory problems are common among the 15,000 residents who live 20 miles southeast of Bakersfield. People complain of watery eyes, dry throats and inexplicable coughs, particularly in the summer, when temperatures can climb over 100 degrees and stay there for days.
Arvin’s level of ozone, the primary component in smog, exceeded the amount considered acceptable by the EPA on an average of 73 days per year between 2004 and 2006. Second on the EPA’s list was the Southern California town of Crestline, at 65 days. The San Francisco Bay Area averaged just four days over the same period.
“Sometimes you go outside and can hardly breathe,” said Irma Garza, 48, who has lived here most of her life. “The worst part is in the summertime you can’t send your kids outside to play.”
Ground-level ozone is created when car exhaust and other noxious fumes are cooked by heat and sunlight. It can trigger asthma attacks, aggravate chronic lung diseases like emphysema and bronchitis and may even reduce the immune system’s ability to fight respiratory infections, according to AIRNow.gov, a Web site developed by several agencies, including the EPA, that monitors ozone levels around the country.
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