America's Dirtiest Cities

[TampaYankee]

America's Dirtiest Cities

California's got seven of them. Will voters finally help clean the Golden State's brown air? Provided by:

By Christopher Helman, Forbes.com

Nov 16, 2010

At the ballot box this November California voters showed that they are determined to clean up their state's deplorable air quality. They quashed Proposition 23, which would have temporarily suspended key emissions-reduction tenets in the Golden State's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. How temporarily? Until pigs fly, or rather until the state unemployment level dropped to 5.5%--from the 12.4% it's at now.

Having survived the challenge (62% of voters rejected Prop 23) the emissions cuts are now set to begin in 2012. A carbon cap-and-trade program will be launched later. The goal is that, in eight years, California will have greenhouse gas emissions 15% lower than they are now.

That's good news for the lungs of Californians. The American Lung Association, in its report State Of The Air 2010, finds seven California metropolitan areas with air quality bad enough that they make it onto the list of the Top 10 Dirtiest Cities in America. The 20 million people in these cities are at higher risk of asthma and chronic bronchitis.

Most of those souls (17.8 million) inhabit the Los Angeles, Long Beach and Riverside area, which ranked second-worst overall and worst in ozone pollution. Aside from millions of cars on the roads, the area also suffers the effects of the nation's busiest port. Researchers at the University of Calgary found in 2008 that salty coastal air mixed with sunshine and pollutants helps create unexpectedly high levels of ground-level ozone.

The biggest problem spot in the country is California's San Joaquin Valley, where farming, industry, car culture and topography collide to trap smog. Wildfires contribute to the problem. Severe particle pollution in valley burgs like Bakersfield (the center of California's oil industry and the metropolitan area with the worst air in the nation), Fresno (third place), Visalia (fourth) and Modesto (eighth) can damage the lungs in the same way cigarettes do. Sacramento (ninth) incentivizes residents to trade in gasoline lawn mowers for electric ones, diesel-powered trucks for hybrid ones and old wood stoves for new ones. The only non-California cities in the top 10: Pittsburgh, Pa; Birmingham, Ala.; and metropolitan Phoenix, Ariz.

Top 5 Dirtiest Cities in America

No. 1: Bakersfield, Calif.

Population: 800,000

Short-term particle pollution rank: 1

Year-round particle pollution rank: 2

Ozone pollution rank: 2

Hot, dusty and surrounded by California's San Joaquin Valley oil fields, Bakersfield has all the ingredients for the worst air in the nation

No. 2: Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, Calif.

Population: 17.8 million

Short-term particle pollution rank: 4

Year-round particle pollution rank: 3

Ozone pollution rank: 1

University of Calgary researchers found in 2008 that salty coastal air mixed with sunshine and pollutants helps create unexpectedly high levels of ground-level ozone.

No. 3: Fresno-Madera, Calif.

Population: 1.1 million

Short-term particle pollution rank: 2

Year-round particle pollution rank: 6

Ozone pollution rank: 4

Cars, agriculture, petroleum and mega-dairies all contribute to the brown haze that hangs over the San Joaquin Valley.

No. 4: Visalia-Porterville, Calif.

Population: 430,000

Short-term particle pollution rank: 8

Year-round particle pollution rank: 3

Ozone pollution rank: 3

Proximity to the giant trees of Sequoia National Park isn't enough to clean Visalia's smoggy San Joaquin Valley air.

No. 5: Hanford-Corcoran, Calif.

Population: 150,000

Short-term particle pollution rank: 10

Year-round particle pollution rank: 8

Ozone pollution rank: 6

Hundreds of aircraft based at the giant Naval Air Station in nearby Lemoore doesn't help Hanford's air quality.

For the full article and rest of the Top Ten see: http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/americas-dirtiest-cities.html

[BiBottomBoy]

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[Lucky]

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You couldn't pay me to live in Bakersfield or Fresno.

[BiBottomBoy]

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