SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, California -- The California forest that is home to the biggest and oldest living things on earth, the giant Sequoia redwoods, also suffers a dubious distinction. It has the worst air pollution of any national park in the U.S.
"Ozone levels here are comparable to urban settings such as LA," said Emily Schrepf of the nonprofit advocacy group the National Park Conservation Association. "It's just not right."
Signs in visitor centers warn guests when it's not safe to hike. The government employment website warns job applicants that the workplace is unhealthy. And park workers are briefed every year on the lung and heart damage the pollution can cause.
Although weakened trees are more susceptible to drought and pests, the long-term impact on the pines and on the giant redwoods that have been around for 3,000 years and more is unclear.
"If this is happening in a national park that isn't even close to an urban area, what do you think is happening in your backyard?" said Annie Esperanza, a park scientist who has studied air quality there for 30 years.
It's a problem in a handful of the nation's 52 parks that are monitored constantly for ozone, including Joshua Tree National Park in California's Mojave Desert and North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But none is as severe as Sequoia and its neighbor, Kings Canyon.
While forest fires create some pollution, most comes from the San Joaquin Valley, the expanse of farmland that is home to California's two busiest north-south trucking highways, diesel freight train corridors, food processing plants and tens of thousands of diesel tractors.
Smog is created when the sun's rays hit pollutants such as oxides of nitrogen and volatile organic compounds that are in motor vehicle exhaust, solvents, pesticides, gasoline vapors and decaying dairy manure.
"There is no simple answer to ozone pollution," said Thomas Cahill, a researcher at the University of California, Davis who studies air problem in Sequoia and across California.
Breathing ozone at high levels for even a short time can blister the lungs like UV rays blisters skin, scientists agree. The problem in quantifying exposure levels, however, is that some people suffer pulmonary damage at lower doses than others.
The only way to improve air in the park is to improve the San Joaquin air basin, something that so far has proved elusive given the myriad sources of pollution. Even with hundreds of millions of dollars spent to retrofit diesel engines and replace gasoline lawnmowers with electric ones, residents pay a federal fine for the region's failure to meet even minimal EPA ozone limits.
"We don't create a disproportionate amount of pollution; it's just that we have these natural challenges so that the pollution we do create can take literally weeks or months to clean out. It just builds up over time," said Jaime Holt, spokeswoman for the valley air district.
Already this year, the level of ozone in Sequoia park has exceeded federal health standards, even though it's early in the summer ozone season. During the June-to-September summer season last year, the park violated the National Ambient Air Quality standard at least 87 times, compared with 56 at Joshua Tree and 12 at Great Smoky Mountains.
"It's tragic that the National Park Service is known for clean air, and then you see a sign saying it's unhealthy to breathe," Esperanza said. "It's so contrary to the national parks idea."
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Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
California's Happiest Seaside Towns - NBC San Diego
SEASIDE PRIDE: Whenever a major publication releases a "best of" list, count on California occupying at least a few of the slots. Honest? It doesn't matter what the list is. Yes, we're definitely preening, because we happen to live here, and yes, that isn't all that attractive, but you cannot deny that you know exactly what we're talking about. Best hot dog? Best five-star hotels? Best of the West? The Golden State is going to make a cameo or two or three. But any list that involves the ocean in any way tends to be, well, if not California-centric, than very favorable of the place. That is, because, spoiler alert, California has a lot of stunning coastline. And, also, spoiler alert, a lot of charming towns occupy that coastline. And giving it up for several of them is Coastal Living, which recently named 15 of "America's Happiest Seaside Towns."
AND THEY ARE... Laguna Beach, which is dang happy, what with its art and its wine and those egg salad sandwiches at Zinc Cafe (we can't talk the LB with talking about that sandwich). Half Moon Bay is on there, which fits, what with its pumpkins and its beauty and the quaintest name of all the choices. And, for the slightly more metro entries? Tiburon and Sausalito each get a spot. The list is practically flush with California-ness, so check it out. Could you visit all four seaside towns this year and feel the happy? We want to, right now.
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Source: www.nbcsandiego.com
California Tobacco Tax Measure Risks Going Up In Smoke - International Business Times
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That settlement between 46 states and tobacco companies was the biggest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history.
NOT FOR STATE BUDGET
Distrust of the legislature informs the language of Prop 29, which would keep revenue it raises from going into the state's general fund - effectively keeping it out of lawmakers' hands.
The roughly $800 million the measure would raise in its first year, followed by decreasing amounts, would instead be set aside, mirroring a successful 1988 ballot measure that imposed a tax of 25 cents per pack of cigarettes.
The money would be overseen by a nine-member committee that includes three University of California chancellors, three cancer research institute directors, one physician affiliated with an academic medical center and two members of disease advocacy groups that focus on tobacco-related illnesses.
In 1998, voters added another 50 cent tax to fund smoking prevention and childhood development programs. That marked the last time they backed a tobacco tax increase. Anti-tobacco advocates credit such hikes with helping drive down the state's smoking rate, although smoking by teens is creeping up.
"As a practical matter you have to tell the voters where you're going to spend the money," Glantz said. "They don't want the money handed over to the politicians."
Only 17 percent of likely voters approve of the job the legislature is doing, compared with 71 percent who disapprove and 11 percent who don't know how they feel, according to the Public Policy Institute of California's survey results.
But Prop 29's opponents have been tapping into a related concern, charging in one TV ad the measure would create a huge new bureaucracy. That echoes claims of wasteful government spending which helped defeat a 2006 statewide measure that urged a $2.60 tax on packs of cigarettes.
(Editng by Todd Eastham)
Source: www.ibtimes.com
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