Air

Santa Rosa BoDean facility faces $1.28 million air-quality fine

Jeff Quackenbush, NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District on Tuesday announced a $1.28 million fine against BoDean Company Inc. for nine violations at its Santa Rosa and Windsor facilities, marking the latest enforcement action involving the Santa Rosa-based construction materials supplier.

The district said the violations occurred between 2021 and 2025 and included “significant unauthorized operations” of rubberized asphalt equipment from August to September 2022. The agency said the activity generated “prolonged, intense odors” that impacted nearby communities for weeks and “produced visible black smoke” from facility equipment.

“Air quality rules exist to prevent harm to the public, and they apply to everyone,” said Dr. Philip Fine, executive officer of the Air District, in the news release. “This penalty makes clear that violations have consequences and that facilities are expected to always comply with air quality requirements.”

The penalty resolves all nine violations, and the company’s facilities have since come into compliance, according to the district. Funds collected will be distributed under the agency’s Community Benefits Policy to support projects aimed at improving air quality and public health across the nine-county region it oversees.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/02/13/bodean-santa-rosa-windsor-air-quality-fine/

Air, , ,

Study ties particle pollution from wildfire smoke to 24,100 US deaths per year

Dorany Pineda, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Chronic exposure to pollution from wildfires has been linked to tens of thousands of deaths annually in the United States, according to a new study.

The paper, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, found that from 2006 to 2020, long-term exposure to tiny particulates from wildfire smoke contributed to an average of 24,100 deaths a year in the lower 48 states.

“Our message is: Wildfire smoke is very dangerous. It is an increasing threat to human health,” said Yaguang Wei, a study author and assistant professor in the department of environmental medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Other scientists who have studied the death toll from wildfire smoke were not surprised by the findings.

Read more at https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-smoke-deaths-climate-change-pm25-0791cd732dc63198e7cc30c9bbbd2f4a

Air, Forests, ,

UC Berkeley researchers find 75% of surveyed field workers labored during Sonoma County wildfires since 2017

Phil Barber, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Study adds to criticisms of county’s Ag Pass program as authors, trade group spar over interpretation

A newly published UC Berkeley study takes a highly critical view of Sonoma County’s Ag Pass program, adding to previous analyses that suggest the system, which allows agricultural workers into disaster evacuation zones when approved by the Sheriff’s Office, keeps local industry humming at the expense of worker health and safety.

Among the findings of a survey of more than 1,000 Sonoma County farmworkers presented in the article published Oct. 20 in the Journal of Agromedicine:

• 75% of respondents said they had done agricultural work during an active wildfire, or in the presence of wildfire smoke.

• 37% said their employers had not provided them with any personal protective equipment while they were working during fires.

• 66% said their health was affected by working during wildfires, with 83% of those citing eye irritation, 75% reporting headaches and 45% shortness of breath.

• 57% said they felt sick but continued to work because they couldn’t afford the lost income, and 51% said they did so because they were afraid of losing their jobs.

• Only 25% said they would feel safe gathering more information and signing up for the program through the Sheriff’s Office.

“Our research … identifies how the county developed a program that expanded access to agricultural workers but in practice primarily meets the needs of owners/operators,” wrote the study’s primary authors, Linda T. Gordon of the Berkeley Human Rights Center and Carly Hyland in the School of Public Health, in an accompanying white paper.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2025/10/24/berkeley-study-sonoma-agpass-farmworker-access-fires/

Agriculture/Food System, Air, , , , ,

Why we don’t need to worry too much about the latest grid battery fire

Julian Spector, CARANY MEDIA


Safety standards and industry practices have improved considerably since construction of the Moss Landing battery plant that recently burned up in California.

The fire that ripped through what was once the world’s largest standalone grid battery on January 16 left clean energy fans and foes alike wondering how it happened and what’s preventing another disaster.

Energy company Vistra built the Moss Landing energy storage facility, on the California coast south of Silicon Valley, as a shining example of the clean grid of the future. The facility stored solar power by day and delivered it in the pivotal evening hours when California’s households need the most energy — an emissions-free alternative to burning fossil gas for energy.

The mid-January fire all but eradicated a building that housed 300 megawatts of battery capacity. Investigators are just beginning to sift through the smoldering remains to ascertain the cause of the fire.

Read more at https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/energy-storage/moss-landing-fire-reveals-flaws-in-the-battery-industrys-early-designs?_hsmi=344216331

Air, Climate Change & Energy, , , ,

New study: Air quality data from 2020 wildfires shows danger smoke poses for ag workers

Mary Callahan, PRESS DEMOCRAT

New research on the dangers agricultural laborers face as climate change contributes to larger, more frequent wildfires has rekindled criticism of Sonoma County policies that researchers say prioritize wine industry interests over worker health.

The study collected data from the 2020 North Bay wildfire season, when the lightning-sparked LNU Complex Fire and the Glass Fire burned for more than two smoke-filled months. The data show there were 17 days when workers were allowed onto vineyards and farms under the county “Ag Pass” program even though air quality in those areas was deemed unhealthy even for hardy individuals.

At the time, public agencies urged residents to reduce prolonged or heavy exertion because of the smoke, and mandatory evacuations were in force. However, agricultural workers, mostly Latino and Indigenous, were allowed into evacuation zones to pick grapes and perform other agricultural tasks as the air burned their eyes, throats and lungs, researchers said.

Fine particulate matter ― tiny particles that can be drawn deeply into the lungs and even the bloodstream ― remained elevated at night, when fire activity typically declines. Much of the grape harvest is carried out in the dark, in cooler temperatures, which further increased the risk of short- and long-term health effects, including higher mortality rates.

The study, published last week in the American Geophysical Union journal GeoHealth, is the latest in a series of papers and policy briefs focused on Sonoma County agricultural workers and the 2020 wildfires, which overlapped harvest season.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2024/08/23/new-study-air-quality-data-from-2020-wildfires-shows-danger-smoke-poses-for-ag-workers/

Agriculture/Food System, Air, , , , ,

How a Petaluma Safeway controversy kicked off the spread of gas station bans across the Bay Area

Sierra Lopez, BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

A movement that began with specific concerns about a station near a school campus in Petaluma is spreading beyond the North Bay.

When Pinole made news last month for being the first East Bay city to ban new gas stations, the small community of 18,000 was tapping into a trend that has been spreading through the Bay Area for the last three years.

It all started when Petaluma became the first city in the country to ban new gas stations in 2021. But the activists who originally launched that first effort had no idea it would turn into a movement — in fact, JoAnn McEachin, a Petaluma resident who helped start the group NoGasHere a decade ago, says she had no intention of becoming an activist at the time, and she wasn’t even opposed to new gas stations in general.

Her issue was with a 16-pump gas station that had been proposed by the supermarket chain Safeway in 2013. Petaluma, a North Bay city of 60,000 residents, already had 16 gas stations, but her specific issue was with its location — the grocer was looking to build on the corner of McDowell Boulevard and Maria Drive, just across the street from a campus that housed an elementary school, a child development center and a preschool.

McEachin believed being upwind from the roughly 2,000 vehicles it was estimated would drive in and out of the station per day would put the children at risk of poor air quality. She connected with a group of other concerned residents — many of them local moms — who rallied together to form NoGasHere, bringing skills from their day jobs as lawyers, marketing professionals, teachers and administrative assistants to their cause.

“(Safeway) pissed off a lot of women,” said McEachin. “It makes my blood boil when I think about it.”

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/safeway-gas-station-ban/

Air, Climate Change & Energy, , ,

Op-Ed: The growing threat of the biomass energy industry

Jenny Blaker, SONOMA COUNTY PEACE PRESS

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Update – good news on legislation!

We need to understand the insidious, growing threat of the biomass energy industry, specifically forest-based bioenergy. Bioenergy turns forests into electricity, liquid biofuels, and fuel pellets for export on the international market. Touted as renewable, it is not clean, renewable or carbon neutral. It is devastating to human health and communities, to forests, watersheds, and wildlife habitat, and only worsens the climate crisis.

Golden State Natural Resources (GSNR) plans to build two massive fuel pellet processing plants in Tuolumne and Lassen counties, targeting 1 million tons of wood pellets per year for export, via the port of Stockton, to Europe and Asia. On June 30, 2023, 109 organizations, including scientists, doctors, environmentalists and others, wrote to GSNR vehemently opposing the project because of its potential impacts to climate, communities, and forests.

On February 28, 2024, GSNR ratified an MOU with the giant UK energy company Drax, the second largest biomass energy company in the world. Drax already runs 18 fuel pellet plants in the USA and Canada. Now it is targeting California, which has 33 million acres of forests.

In a shocking exposé of Drax in October 22, the BBC revealed that Drax is responsible for the destruction of millions of acres of mature and old growth trees in Canada and southeast USA. The company’s assertions that it uses only waste wood were proven to be false. Drax is by far the largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the UK. It is subsidized by UK taxpayers to the tune of around £1.4 billion (about $1.8 billion) in subsidies up until last year.

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Op-Ed: The growing threat of the biomass energy industryRead More »

Air, Climate Change & Energy, Forests, , , ,
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