EPA Funds Flow To California's San Joaquin Valley To Study Air Pollution

"The grant also marks a significant departure from the notoriously smoggy Los Angeles basin as the home of California's large-scale air pollution studies.

Air in the San Joaquin Valley generally is not quite as bad as in parts of inland Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. But the Los Angeles basin clearly is winning its war on air pollution, EPA and state smog officials say. The San Joaquin Valley is not".

"The EPA money will support research on the health effects of particle pollution. That's the aerosol of fine bits of soot from vehicles, wood smoke from burning of orchard and vineyard clippings, chemicals from pesticides and fertilizers and, increasingly, emissions from wastes of dairy cows, numbering more than 2.5 million in the Valley."

"UC Davis will be one of five new air pollution research centers sharing a combined $40 million in EPA grant money over the the next five years."