The most polluted town in California
Doctors and public officials say respiratory problems are common among the 15,000 residents of Arvin 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 to more than 100 degrees and stay there for days.
This article makes it sound as if the Bay Area is a huge source of Arvin’s pollution. There’s no doubt that some comes from the Bay Area, but there’s little attention paid to the fact that the southern San Joaquin Valley produces a lot of pollution on its own. It does explain how the particular geography of that corner of California plays a big role in focusing and intensifying the smog. The hills fence it in, the prevailing winds squeeze it, the heat cooks it.
Much of the air pollution in that part of the valley comes from Bakersfield and Fresno (which many people don’t realize is huge), as well as from the two truck-heavy freeways that go up the valley (99 and 5), and hundreds of huge pieces of agricultural machinery, with much laxer emissions standards than even the freeway vehicles. Add that to tons of sprayed agricultural chemicals in that area, plus everything that blows down from Sacramento, Stockton, and elsewhere up-valley (agricultural chemicals, city pollution, freeway pollution), and Arvin can get plenty nasty on its own without adding Bay Area pollution (hemmed in by its own hills) into the mix. Bay Area pollution gets crammed down into San Jose, or drifts up toward Sacramento (whence some does blow down into the San Joaquin Valley), it’s not the biggest source of pollution for the central valley itself..
I have no doubt the Bay Area contributes some of it, but I can’t imagine that it’s close to the lion’s share. The geography doesn’t work out that way.
(I haven’t researched this specific town, but I have researched and informally studied pollution leading to amphibian dieoff in the southern Sierra Nevada, and I have studied pollution patterns in the Sacramento and Stockton areas, and get some of my understanding from those pieces of information.)
