This is a victory for which honor is due to the environmental movement which has been in the lead on this issue for a long time, becasue finally, Sacramento’s air meets federal standards.
Very good news, as reported by the Sacramento Bee.
The Sacramento region complies with the federal air quality standard for fine particle pollution, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined this month.
After the federal agency tightened its fine particle standard in 2006, Sacramento became one of the few areas in the country with dirty air under EPA rules.
The Sacramento region met the new standard largely due to winter regulations on wood burning, said Larry Greene, executive director of the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District.
“That’s a major part of the reduction because the days we exceeded (standards) were largely days in the wintertime when we had a lot of wood burning,” he said.
Since 2007, the district has imposed wood burning limits between November and February through its “Check Before You Burn” program. The region had 13 days last season in which residents could not burn at all.
Fine particles can come from direct sources such as forest fires, or they can form in the air from power plant emissions and auto tailpipe exhaust. But about half of Sacramento’s problem during fall and winter – when particulate levels are highest – comes from wood burning, according to the Sacramento Metropolitan air district.
While state and local air quality officials largely credited the burning restrictions, they said the region’s air also benefited from efforts to cleanse diesel emissions from trucks and farm equipment, cleaner passenger vehicles and stricter regulations on pollution from buildings such as power plants and factories.
The EPA-designated Sacramento area includes all of Sacramento County, western El Dorado and Placer counties, southern Sutter County and eastern Yolo and Solano counties.
The only areas left in California that still do not have clean data to pass the 2006 standard are based in San Joaquin, Los Angeles and Imperial counties.