FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — California’s vast San Joaquin Valley, the country’s most productive farming region, is engulfed by some of the nation’s dirtiest skies, forcing the state’s largest air district to spend more than $40 billion in the past quarter-century to enforce hundreds of stringent pollution rules.
The investment has steadily driven down the number of days with unhealthy air – but on hot, windless days, a brown haze still hangs overhead, sending wheezing people with tight chests to emergency rooms and hundreds each year to an early grave.
Despite the air district’s efforts, the valley’s air still violates federal standards for sooty pollution that comes from industry, businesses and vehicles.
In California, where Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown is an outspoken leader in the global fight against climate change, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District now is waging a very public campaign against enforcement of the landmark U.S. Clean Air Act that includes ever-tightening air quality standards the district says it cannot meet.
Officials in the relatively conservative region have seized upon the election of Donald Trump, who won the popular vote in half of the district’s eight counties in November – a far stronger performance than in most of California.
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