Bay Area achieves clean air milestone
SAN FRANCISCO — The Bay Area has cleaned up its air enough to meet the federal health standard for soot and fine pollution particles after a long and controversial campaign to reduce wood burning.
In making the announcement Thursday, Bay Area air quality regulators said it’s good news for people at risk of asthma and
emphysema attacks, strokes and heart attacks, and other ailments aggravated by the fine pollution particles.
Likened to very tiny razor blades, the particles and droplets finer than the width of a human hair are called PM 2.5. They invade human respiratory and circulatory systems, health experts say.
“Meeting this air quality milestone is truly a clean air success story for the Bay Area, and the air district’s 2008 woodburning rule has played a significant role helping us meet the standard,” said Jack Broadbent, the chief executive officer of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
The wood-burning rule bans wood fires during Spare the Air days when unhealthy air is predicted. The rule also bans oldfashioned, wood-burning fireplaces and stoves in new construction.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency recently posted an online notice that the Bay Area, Sacramento and Chico regions all comply with the federal standard of 35 micrograms per cubic meter of air — based on air quality measurements taken from 2013 to 2015.
The San Joaquin Valley and Los Angeles air basins are considered far out of compliance.
Wood smoke is the largest source of particles in the Bay Area during the winter, when cold nights with stagnant air trap pollutants near ground level, according to the air district.
Auto exhaust and diesel truck soot also add to the pollution load. The introduction of cleaner vehicles also has helped lower particle levels, said Eric Stevenson, the district’s director of technical services.
Since 2009, the air district has awarded more than $100 million in grants to reduce pollution around the Port of Oakland by funding cleaner truck engines and enabling ships to plug into electric power while in berth, officials said.
A spokeswoman for the American Lung Association of California said she was pleased by the clean air attainment, but remained cautious.
“We are delighted by the progress,” said Bonnie Gen-Holmes, “but we need to do more to move away from combustion vehicles to zero-emission electric vehicles, and to move away from wood burning to zero emission heating sources such as electricity.”
The Bay Area air district regulates air pollution in seven Bay Area counties plus southern parts of Solano and Sonoma counties.