So here’s a brief summary of what happened:

First, we thanked Marina for all the incredible work she has done as Director of STA in NC and discussed finding someone to act as her replacement now that she has had to resign as Director to focus more on her new job and her family.  Fortunately, Marina will still be serving on the Board, so we’re all very glad that she’ll still be with us.  We are currently trying to find someone probably from the STA in NC Board or the Committees to take over as Director at least temporarily until we can find a permanent replacement for Marina.  I’m sure there will be further announcements about this in the coming weeks.  Also, we are always looking for new volunteers to help out in different ways, so anyone who is interested in getting more involved is encouraged to contact one of us on the Board.

Ed Welch gave a summary of what the Education and Advocacy Committee has been up to, including providing input to the Sacramento SIP plan and preparing an updated and improved ozone presentation that can be shown to schools, community groups and government officials, etc.  I’ll let Ed fill everybody in more on that and the other things his committee has been up to.

I gave an update on the Science and Monitoring Committee’s activities and accomplishments.  I have a power point presentation that I would love to send out, but it’s 16 MB in size and I don’t want to clog everybody’s email up.  I’ll see if I can get it on our website or cut it down in size a bit.

The gist of the update was that we successfully operated two monitors this ozone season (one at the Nevada City City Hall and the other at the Grass Valley Charter School) and provided the data in real-time on our website.  We found that the ozone levels at the NCCH and GVCS were much lower than the Litton Building (where the official monitor is located) at night, most likely due to down-slope drainage winds at night bringing cleaner air to the NCCH and GVCS locations.  From late morning through early evening the NCCH and GVCS monitor readings were usually pretty similar to the Litton monitor, although slightly lower.

It turns out that this ozone season had the lowest number of exceedance days on record for the Litton monitor, and each of the last three ozone seasons has seen a reduction in the number of ozone exceedance days.  This is all reason for some hope that we are on the right track towards reducing our ozone, but our levels are still far too high and we still have far too many exceedance days.  So we need to keep pushing and advocating for further ozone precursor emissions reduction programs and hold CARB and EPA’s feet to the fire to make sure they follow through on their projections of continually decreasing emissions.

David Fallside also described the more technical aspects of our ozone monitoring system in more detail and outlined ways we hope to improve it and make it more robust in the future.  Also, there are continuing maintenance costs associated with keeping our monitoring system up and running, so your financial assistance is very much appreciated to keep the program going.

Mike Pasner of CLAIM-GV kindly came to give us an update on the status of the Idaho-Maryland Mine situation and related how Emgold is still trying to get the project approved and that they are currently revising the DEIR to respond to all the comments that were received during the public review process last spring.  So we will have to be ready when they come back and submit the revised DEIR in the coming months.  Thanks for the update, Mike!

Please let me or anyone else on the Board know if you have any more specific questions or comments, or if you’d like to get more involved in helping STA in NC work towards its goal of achieving cleaner air in Nevada County.

Thanks for your continuing interest and support, and we hope to see you next time!

Best Regards,
Paul Frederickson
Chair, Science and Monitoring Committee
Save the Air in Nevada County

Coalition for Clean Air.

To celebrate the end of ozone season and to present information on our future plans, STA in NC will be holding a members’ potluck at Jacobson Ranch, just north of Nevada City, on Thursday, October 8, from 6 to 8 pm.

After a potluck dinner, our members will tell you about our 2009 activities, the status of our Grass Valley and Nevada City monitors, what we learned over the past ozone season, and what we’re planning for the future. The band Silver Wings will entertain us during dinner and after the presentations.

Please bring some food or drinks to share, your questions and curiosity, and suggestions for future activities. If you’ve been looking for a way to become more involved with STA in NC, this is the meeting to attend. We hope to see you there!

Directions to Jacobson’s Ranch: From Highway 49, take Cement Hill road 1.5 miles up the hill to 11153 Cement Hill Rd (on the left). After pulling into the driveway, there is a parking area to the left.

It’s just over 4-minutes long and seems to offer some real hope for controlling our indoor air quality.

Michael Jerrett of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues studied nearly 500,000 people across the United States for 18 years and found that ozone played no role in heart disease deaths once air pollution consisting of very tiny particles was taken into account.

But ozone, at ground level a corrosive form of oxygen that is the primary constituent of smog, was the key player in respiratory fatalities.

“We now know that controlling ozone is not only beneficial for mitigating global warming, but that it could also have near-term benefits in the reduction of deaths from respiratory causes,” Jerrett said in a statement.

Doctors have long known that ozone is hazardous. Short-term exposure aggravates asthma symptoms and causes breathing problems. Ozone alerts are common in much of the United States during hot summer days.

The study, published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine, shows that long-term exposure increased mortality, said Jerrett.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to connect chronic exposure to ozone, one of the most widespread pollutants in the world, with the risk of death,” he said.

About 7.7 million people worldwide die from respiratory causes every year and the team reported that raising the ozone level by 10 parts per billion raises the likelihood of death from lung problems by 4 percent.

(See the story on Reuters website)

For Immediate Release For more information, call Marina Bernheimer 274.3760

PROPOSED IDAHO-MARYLAND MINE TO CAUSE “SIGNIFICANT” AND “UNAVOIDABLE” IMPACTS TO LOCAL AIR QUALITY

Blistering Report by local organization says that Draft EIR is “inadequate and incomplete”; Mine fails to evaluate numerous chemicals and pollutants

Grass Valley, CA – Save the Air in Nevada County (STA in NC), the organization founded two years ago to combat ozone air pollution in Nevada County, submitted comments to the City of Grass Valley today, stating that the draft environmental report for the proposed Idaho Maryland Mine is “inadequate and incomplete” and fails to identify and assess a number of chemicals and pollutants that will be used at the facility that are known to cause cancer.

STA in NC works with numerous local and state agencies and non-profit groups to correct the county’s ozone pollution problem. The group formed when the American Lung Association ranked Nevada County as having the 12^th worst ozone pollution problem in the nation. Many of the organization’s members are parents with young children, who are very concerned about the potential lasting damage our areas high ozone levels could have on their children’s respiratory systems. Nevada County has a higher incidence of childhood asthma than the state average.

“This environmental impact report is hopelessly inadequate and irresponsibly incomplete,” said Marina Bernheimer, director of the organization. “This proposed project should have never even come this far because it directly violates the City’s Ozone and Air Quality Resolution it passed only 8 months ago.”

“The draft Environmental Report admits that many of the air quality problems associated with re-opening the Idaho Maryland Mine are “unavoidable” – essentially saying “We know we’re going to further pollute your air, and negatively affect your health, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Bernheimer.

In December, STA in NC retained the services of Tamura Environmental of Petaluma, a nationally respected air quality consulting firm that has worked on dozens of air quality conflicts over the past 15 years.

Among other things, the report’s findings conclude that:

• The DEIR fails to report and evaluate major sources of ozone air pollution;
• The DEIR fails to identify and assess a number of Hazardous Air Pollutants and Toxic Air contaminants;
• The DEIR fails to adequately quantify emissions of hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acids and the risks to human health;
• The DEIR fails to identify methylene chloride as a hazardous material. The chemical is a confirmed carcinogen and the Mine will use more than 26,000 gallons per year.
• The DEIR admits that up to two tons of sodium cyanide will be used at the Mine every three weeks but fails to quantify the emissions into the local air or the known health risks to humans.

The firm’s comments will be submitted by STA in NC to the City of Grass Valley and are available at www.stainnc.org.

Click here to read the comments from Todd Tamura.

Click here to read the comments by STAinNC about IMM.

Click here to read the resume of Todd Tamura, the man who did the review.

Click here to see the what the readings were right before they were packed up.

De-mystifying the Air Quality Index

It’s a hot summer’s night. Sleep is impossible. To make matters worse, mosquitoes have found a hole in the screen.

If only, say, two mosquitoes get through the screen, the situation might not be too bad. Our “mosquito radar” can track two mosquitoes. Should one light, you’d notice and slap her before she could drink.

Should four mosquitoes get through the hole, human reflexes could probably still handle the situation.

Six mosquitoes, though, might be pushing things, and eight would definitely be a challenge. Distracted by a mosquito exploring your arm, you fail to notice the one dining on your leg.

Many toxins seem to act in a similar way: The body’s defenses – detox and repair systems – can deal with small quantities of poison, but larger quantities overwhelm us.

The ozone AQI – or air quality index – assumes ozone works this way. A certain amount of ozone in the air is deemed not to be harmful; beyond that amount, it becomes dangerous.

Ozone absorbs ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

That is why ozone in the stratosphere, more than 20 miles over our heads, is “good ozone:” It absorbs solar radiation that would otherwise damage DNA and cause cancer.

To measure ozone, instruments shine UV through the air, and measure how much is absorbed. The more absorption, the more ozone there is.

Under federal air regulations, if there are no more than 59 molecules of ozone in a billion molecules of air, air quality is considered “good:” It should have no impact on health.

Regulators feel we can deal with 59 “mosquitoes” in that much air.

Sixty molecules of ozone in a billion molecules of air – 60 parts per billion, 60 ppb – is a “breakpoint,” where air quality is no longer described as good, but as “moderate.” When the air has this much ozone in it, says the EPA, “unusually sensitive people should consider limiting prolonged outdoor exertion.” But for most people, the agency feels levels up to 75 ppb will not have adverse health effects.

Seventy-six ppb is the next breakpoint. Air with 76 molecules of ozone per billion molecules of air (76 ppb) is deemed unhealthy, not for everyone, but for people who are especially sensitive: Asthmatics; people with lung disease; and the elderly.

It’s also unhealthy for anyone exercising. That’s because breathing deeply, we pull more air – and more ozone – into our lungs.

Reporting air quality in parts-per-billion can be cumbersome, so air agencies convert these numbers to “rounder” ones. If there are 59 molecules of ozone for each billion molecules of air, the AQI is reported as 50 – the very upper edge of what’s considered “good.”

If there are 75 ppb, the AQI is 100 – the very upper edge of “moderate.”

A reading between 60 and 75 translates to an AQI between 50 and 100.

And so on.

Those who consider air pollution regulations onerous point out that these are awfully tiny amounts of ozone Ð that 76 ppb (which translates to an AQI of 101, the breakpoint where the air is deemed harmful to sensitive groups) is equivalent to making a martini with an ounce of vermouth in something over a hundred-thousand gallons of gin.

True, but irrelevant. If anything, it demonstrates ozone’s potency as a toxin.

The AQI embodies a couple of assumptions: First, that there is a natural baseline – a level of ozone that would exist in the air even if humanity were driving no cars or trucks, generating no energy, fertilizing no farms, clearing no forests. Second, that this “natural background” level causes no adverse health effects.

Over the years, the AQI calculation has been repeatedly revised to make it more conservative, reflecting accumulating evidence that natural background levels are lower than had been presumed, and ozone more harmful. The most recent revision was made this past March; some say it’s already due for another.