In 1965, the Mamas & the Papas were dreaming about California. Living in New York, where “all the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray,” they put their thoughts of escaping to a west coast paradise to music. They wound up scoring a hit song.
Forty-seven years later, it’s the California sky that’s brown. And gray. The Golden State is now home to the seven worst cities for your lungs in America. All exist in a 300-mile swath between Los Angeles (No. 2) and Modesto (No. 6), a city of 200,000 in the Central Valley that was featured in the 1973 hit movie American Graffiti.
What ails Modesto is what ails Bakersfield (No. 1), Hanford (No. 3), Fresno (No. 4) and other small Central Valley cities (the Valley accounts for all the California cites on the list aside from Los Angeles): heavy doses of nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbons stemming from gasoline, chemical processing, paints and other industrial byproducts that harm the ozone and release particle pollution into the air. Agriculture is one of the cornerstones of the region’s economy, so diesel fuel emissions from farm equipment are plentiful. The area is also a gateway to Yosemite – passing auto traffic on local freeways is heavy.
Our list of America’s Worst Cities For Your Lunges is based on data compiled by the American Lung Association for its State of the Air report, which ranks 277 urban areas using three factors: number of high ozone (smog) days per year, average particle pollution during the year, and average particle pollution per 24 hours. Particle pollution is measured both short-term and long-term to account for sudden, brief events like high winds and occasional wood burning.
California, which is home to 12 of the 50 cities with the worst air pollution, has certainly tried to address its problems. According to Paul Billings, the American Lung Association’s Senior V.P. for Advocacy and Education, no state has done more to reduce emissions through regulation. And there has been some progress in recent years. But geography, climate and long-fixed patterns of behavior pose challenging hurdles. “Mountains, sunshine and lots of cars,” says Billings. The problem is most acute in the Central Valley, where nearby mountains tend to trap the pollution sent to the skies from heavy auto traffic and other machinery. And arid conditions, especially during the summer, leave the area without much rainfall to rinse the muck out of the air.
Billings points out another interesting tidbit: mild weather means cars tend to last longer in California, keeping old clunkers on the road. “There’s no snow, no road salt, you never see a car rust,” he says. Result: people are slower to trade in for more efficient models.
The state faces quite a dilemma. Environmental debates generally revolve around balancing clean air and jobs: at what cost to industry do you champion the environment through regulation? California, with some of the strictest rules in the country, has managed to strike out altogether: the economy and the environment are both lousy. Safe and warm in L.A.? Not for the 9.4% of the people there that are unemployed, or the 1.3 million people with asthma. A thought: lowering taxes and getting the public sector unions under control could be a path toward economic rebirth that doesn’t include tinkering with environmental laws.
In 2012, many Californians are probably thinking what East Coast California dreamers were thinking in 1965: “I could leave today.”