Kurtis Alexander, SFGate Blog, March 6, 2014
This year’s dry winter is making history not only for a lack of rainfall but for a lung-blasting surge in air pollution.
With few storms to clear out the stagnant wintertime skies, dirty air has built up more often than usual, prompting air-quality regulators in the Bay Air to issue a record-tying number of advisories, known as Spare the Air alerts.
On 30 occasions between November and February the Bay Area Air Quality Management District advised that pollutants such as particulate matter in smoke and haze were approaching or would hit unhealthy levels. The number of Spare the Air alerts this winter was the highest since the 2006-07 season.
The story was similar in other parts of the state. While not a record, the notoriously polluted San Joaquin Valley recorded 66 days of air quality approaching substandard levels, up from 52 the prior winter.
Read the complete post here.
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