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Stakeholders:

Children and families vulnerable to asthma

Cattle ranchers

CALTrans

Almond farmers

NOAA

EPA

SJV Air Pollution Control

Kern River Oil Field

Central California Asthma Collaborative

 Teve Brown of NOAA said the valley suffers from cows + cards. At Harris Ranch a large industrial cattle farm trucks drive 6,000miles/day for 60 loads of feed producing nitrogen oxides (NOx). NOx combines with the ammonia from cow manure and urine to from ammonium nitrate which accounts for more that 1/2 of the areas most polluted days of PM2.5.

In addition, Interstate is a major thorough bringing more traffic pollution and farming practices including nitrogen fertilizer contributes 1/3 of NOx in California air.  The SJV also holds 9000 oil wells and because all the light oil has been drilled, the current production is described as the "thickest, dirtiest petroleum" in the nation.

Intersecting factors: landscape (bowl shape of the Valley); economic (agriculture that contributes to PM2.5); transportation corridor that add more traffic pollution; and state-wide wildfires that bring more particulate pollution which is trapped; and political environment in which area elects representatives  (ex: Devin Nunes) who deny global warming and reject environmental protection.

Air pollution--the result of cows+cars--is the focus of this multimedia article. One in six children in the SJV suggest from asthma. It is estimated that air pollution costs SJV as much as $11 billion annually the result of emergency room visits, lost school days, and other public health impacts.

The setting for this article is the San Joaquin Valley which encompasses 2/3rds of the Central Valley CA. Because of it's fertle farmland, it supplies 1/4 of the food to "American plates."

In terms of setting, like other valley's in CA (ex: San Gabriel Valley) and the whole LA Basin, the SJV's bowl-like landscape (mountain ranges on 3-sides) results in temperature inversion that traps smo closer to the ground during Wintertime.

Climbing this "disposal" cell was the main event of our guided tour of the Weldon Spring's Interpretive Center. It represents the "finished product" of the toxic waste clean up project and Legacy Management site. Engineered and constructed with 8 layers of strategically chosen materials, the cell is expected to "deter the migration of [its] contaminants" for up to 1000 years. Thus, it is really more of a storage cell than a disposal cell...

Some of the questions coming from our group concerned the criteria of assessment used to determine the cell's long term durability and functionality. For instance, the cell was designed to control and treat leachate--water that has become contaminated from seeping through the cell--but this capacity has its limits. Though the cell has been designed to handle well-over the historical record of rainfall in the area, climate change has rendered history an ineffective means of predicting the severity of weather in the future.

Another concern is the transfer of knowledge about the cell and its toxic contents. How do we make sure no one opens it up (or blows it up) over the course of 1000 years? The strategy of the DOE is to monitor the cell by testing the local area for contaminants, maintaining strict military surveillance over the area, and by using the interpretive center to educate tourists and the local community about the cell, i.e. Legacy Management. But the US federal government's (or any institution's) ability to keep this up for 1000 years is obviously questionable, at the very best. What is certain here is that, by managing nuclear waste, with its inhuman time scales and the correlate amplification of complexity, we are venturing into uncharted waters. The DOE wants to create the impression that everything is under control and it may be, for the time being. It is also reasonable to take pains not to incite widespread fear and panic. But it is similarly important to recognize that we, in this moment, simply cannot be in control over 1000 years of possibility.