air quality – Enviro Updates

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

February 13, 2026

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.

Airair pollution, air quality, BAAQMD, BoDean Company

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

October 24, 2025

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.

Agriculture/Food System, AirAg Pass, air quality, farm workers, health & safety, particulates, wildfire smoke

Rohnert Park ups scrutiny of Resynergi

September 22, 2025

Jeff Quackenbush, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Resynergi Inc., a 10-year-old Rohnert Park company that has encountered strong local opposition in recent weeks to its plan to start up the latest generation of its unique system for dealing with plastic waste, was told this week it may need more county authorizations.

Sonoma County’s Environmental Health Division sent the company a letter, dated Sept. 16, saying the operation isn’t a recycling center, so it may need to get from the county a solid waste facility permit. The agency and CalRecycle, which regulates solid waste statewide, are talking about what approvals could be needed and are set to make a decision in a week or two, a division spokesperson told the Journal in an email Monday.

“Your facility will use pyrolysis to convert waste plastic into a form that can be re-used,” Director Christine Sosko wrote in the letter obtained by The Press Democrat. “Although your facility might be considered a recycling facility in vernacular language, it is not under state law.”

Resynergi is seeking to turn on its latest research version of its “advanced microwave pyrolysis” system, this one designed to sort, grind up and transform via heat in an oxygen-less slight vacuum up to 5 tons of certain plastics into pyrolysis oil to be trucked off to refiners for making more plastics or fuel. California law treats pyrolysis as “transformation” and not recycling.

Sustainable Livingair quality, Integrated Waste Management Plan, solid waste

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

January 27, 2025

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.

Air, Climate Change & Energyair quality, battery storage, fire danger, grid battery, soil pollution

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

August 23, 2024

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.

Agriculture/Food System, AirAg Pass, air quality, farm workers, health & safety, particulates, wildfire smoke

California vineyard laborers wanted wildfire safety. Then came a shadowy counter-movement

June 11, 2022

Alleen Brown, THE GUARDIAN

As harvest season becomes riskier, workers are pressing for safer conditions including disaster insurance and hazard pay

But in recent months, a slick website has appeared under the name Sonoma Wine Industry for Safe Employees, or Sonoma Wise, featuring counterpoints to demands from North Bay Jobs with Justice.

When Margarita García, a 39-year-old mother from Oaxaca, Mexico, picks wine grapes during a wildfire, the sky is red and thick with smoke. Ash falls on her face, irritating her throat and eyes. The hot, fast work makes N-95 masks too suffocating, so she and her colleagues opt for bandanas.

In this part of northern California, the grape harvesting season has been transformed by fire. Sonoma county is known internationally for its pinot noir and – increasingly – for intense wildfire seasons made worse by the climate crisis. That has created new economic threats for both grape growers, who can lose an entire season’s harvest in a matter of hours, and for workers, who must operate in increasingly dangerous conditions without replacement income if work is called off.

Now, vineyard laborers like García are pressing officials to enact stronger worker protections during wildfire seasons. They want hazard pay, disaster insurance and safety trainings translated in Indigenous languages – García’s first language is Mixteco. They are also pushing for community safety observers to be allowed to monitor working conditions in evacuation zones and for clean water and bathrooms, even when the ash is falling.

It’s an example of a type of climate-driven labor organizing that is growing across the US, as workers face new climate hazards, such as exposure to extreme heat and hurricane disaster zones littered with dangerous materials.

In turn, a surprising counter-movement has arisen – one that has the veneer of being worker-led, but is driven by the wine industry itself.

Labor organizers say it’s a familiar tactic – one that’s long been used by powerful industries to curtail movements for worker’s rights.

Agriculture/Food System, Climate Change & Energyair quality, extreme temperatures, fire danger, health & safety, wildfires

Northern California requires oil refiners to slash air pollution

July 21, 2021

Laila Kearney, REUTERS

Northern California regulators on Wednesday directed two of the state’s largest oil refineries to slash their fine particulate air pollution, which will require costly modifications at the plants.

The 19-3 vote by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District governing board means refineries in the area, including Chevron Corp’s (CVX.N) Richmond plant and PBF Energy Inc’s (PBF.N) Martinez refinery, will have to install wet gas scrubbers to reduce pollution spewed by their gasoline-making fluid catalytic cracking units (FCCU) within five years.

The new requirement is expected to cut PBF and Chevron’s particulate matter emissions from its cat crackers by about 70%, the air quality district estimates.

Air, Climate Change & Energyair pollution, air quality, fossil fuel infrastructure, particulates