Joint Effort on Air-QualityStudies
B WhileRAWLEY — Weather events such as Hurricane Harvey are a potent reminder of the devastating impact on human health by extreme forces of nature.
not subject to hurricanes, Imperial County does have a history of air quality issues. In a report released in April by the American Lung Association, the county saw the lowest amount of unhealthy days for ozone pollution at 23. Compared to the first report published in 2000, which recorded 120 days, that’s quite a difference.
In Imperial County, there are now 23,000 diagnosed with asthma, noted Maria Peinado, information officer for Imperial County Public Health Department. In data compiled from 2014, ICPHD recorded 166 hospitalizations for asthma or 8.8 percent per 10,000 residents. The number of emergency department visits for asthma was 1,515 for all ages. The highest rate of ED visits was among five to 17-year-olds at 163 percent. The lowest rate, 52 percent was among the 18 to 64-year-olds.
ICPHD also cited studies showing between 15 and 30 percent of asthma cases can be caused by work-place exposures. Other risk factors include tobacco use, second-hand smoke, obesity, living below the poverty level and unemployment.
Despite gradual improvement, California’s air quality still peaks at unhealthy levels, subjecting residents to ailments such as asthma, COPD and lung cancer. “But there are too many areas where residents are breathing dirty air,” said Olivia Diaz-Lapham, president of the American Lung Association, California.
Corroborating that outlook was Roya Bahreini, associate professor of environmental sciences at the University of California Riverside, who collected air samples from the exposed lake bed of the Salton Sea last summer. Exposed lake bed comprised 10 percent of PM10 (visible particulate matter) while 45 percent came from the surrounding desert.
Her study also revealed exposed lake bed particulates had high concentrations of sodium, calcium and selenium, though for the time being, they were below toxicity levels, she noted.
Taking action in May, cooperation for a joint-venture pilot project began when Comite Civico del Valle, an environmental nonprofit, approached UC Davis’s Environmental Health Sciences Center, who decided to fund a one-year project with a renewal option. The project aims to understand the chemical composition of air particles in the region and determine where said particles come from, noted Humberto Lugo, policy advocate for Comite.
They plan, to set up a trailer with air monitors at Calipatria High School to measure PM10 and PM 2.5 (invisible particulates that can become embedded in lungs/blood streams). “We did extensive mapping to see which place had the most asthma, and Calipatria has one of the highest rates in the county,” said Lugo. “But Calipatria takes precautions keeping students indoors on high-pollution days and alerting everybody through the flag-notification program, red, unhealthy, green healthy.”
Also participating in the study, will be students from Calipatria High School. UC Davis has arranged an upcoming opportunity for two students to visit their campus in the summer of 2018 to observe the analysis of air samples, noted Alexandrea Vazquez, AP biology and chemistry teacher. Studying the Salton Sea is only part of one unit of their environmental-studies track. Participating with the UC Davis scientists is a wonderful opportunity for such students to become acquainted with the rigors of university curriculum.
“It’s not just science, but the data collection is a good way to show how course work is applied,” said Vazquez. “Since our students are still in high school, they’re used to coming to class and taking notes. But now they’ll know how to apply classroom experience to a real world job.”
Maria Sanchez and Ricardo Cantua are 12th graders who will assist with air monitoring. Sanchez intends to major in environmental policy at college, while Cantua, applied to UC Davis and aims to major in forensic psychology.
Sanchez herself has asthma, and while she is not limited in any way, she is taking medication. This past summer, as part of UC San Diego’s Global Environmental Leadership and Sustainability program’s excursion to Washington D. C., she prepared a report on the Valley environment. In summary, Sanchez maintained, 90 percent of water in the Salton Sea comes from inflows of agricultural fields. Inflows contain pesticides that can toxify or even kill fish, and when birds eat them, they can easily become ill.
Meanwhile, Cantua, on Friday, showed off their class’ most recent lab experiment, trying to measure the oxygen consumed by pea seeds during cellular respiration, as a way of learning how glucose (sugar) in the human body is turned into adenosine triphosphate (the biochemical way to store energy).
Dr. Kent Pinkerton is the UC Davis director of the Environmental Health Sciences Center. Their collection of particulate samples, which begins with training the students in December, will try to find if any materials in the lake bed exacerbates human respiratory functions.
Pinkerton said the students here will remove filters from air monitors once they are full and carefully pack them into plastic sleeves to prevent contamination. Filters are then shipped to UC Davis for analysis. “The next step is to see if these particles are causing harm,” said Pinkerton. “It takes a lot of answers to see if our hypothesis is correct.”
His colleague, Professor Keith Bein, said that hypothesis revolves around two analysis, toxicological and determining the chemical composition of particle samples. So, they will attempt to show whether different sources of air pollution can be more or less toxic than other sources and whether or not said toxicities originate from The Salton Sea, agricultural fields, Mexicali, vehicle exhaust, cooking exhaust, construction activity and/ or yard work.
“We already know the Salton Sea is a source of air pollution,” said Bein. “Add new sources of pollution (secondary gases mixing together with a primary emission to create a secondary organic aerosol) it then increases the concentration of that pollution. We do not yet know if Salton Sea air particulates are causing respiratory ailments, but that is the point of our investigation. And we need to have the trailer here for a year to get sufficient samples.”
Also assisting will be Savanah Mack, a Ph.D. candidate. “Imperial Valley is in the top ten counties of California for asthma according to the California Air Resources Board,” she said. “Whatever results we find, we want to disseminate data to members of the community so they can form a liaison group to decide how to do it.”
Currently, there are 1,300 acres of shore line that become exposed each year. But helping stem the tide of Salton Sea erosion is Senate Bill 5, co-authored by Senate Pro Tem Kevin De Leon (D-24th) and Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia (D-56th). This is a $4 billion bond to address drought, water, parks and environmental protection.
“I’m grateful we were able to acquire $200 million to fund the 10-year Salton Sea Management Plan,” said Garcia. “The infusion of these state dollars is imperative to mitigating this ecological, public health and economic disaster.”