The Long Road to Clean Air in the San Joaquin Valley: Facing the Challenge of Public Engagement David Lighthall, Ph.D. John Capitman, Ph.D. California State University, Fresno Central Valley Health Policy Institute Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the following people for their invaluable assistance with the publication of this report. Appreciation is also extended to the individuals who provided peer review of the report. Editing and Design Deborah Riordan, PT, MPH Debbie Wray Donna DeRoo, MPA Event Planning and Administrative Support Latrica Washington Web Support Carla Hawks Communications and Public Relations Brandie Campbell Office of University Communications at California State University, Fresno Leadership and Project Support Carole Chamberlain, Program Officer, The California Endowment Benjamin Cuellar, Dean, College of Health and Human Services, California State University, Fresno Laurie Primavera, Associate Director, Central Valley Health Policy Institute The Members of the Regional Advisory Council, Central Valley Health Policy Institute Central Valley Health Policy Institute The Central Valley Health Policy Institute was established in 2002 at California State University, Fresno to facilitate regional research, leadership training and graduate education programs to address emerging health policy issues that influence the health status of people living in the San Joaquin Valley. The Institute was funded in July 2003 by The California Endowment, in partnership with the university, to promote health policy and planning in the region. Additional information about the Central Valley Health Policy Institute, its programs and activities (including this report), academic and community resources may be found at: www.cvhpi.org. Central Valley Health Policy Institute Central California Center for Health and Human Services College of Health and Human Services California State University, Fresno 1625 E. Shaw Avenue, Suite 146 Fresno, CA 93710-8106 559.228.2150 Fax: 559.228.2168 Suggested Citation Lighthall, D., and Capitman, J. (2007, December). The Long Road to Clean Air in the San Joaquin Valley: Facing the Challenge of Public Engagement. Fresno, CA: California State University, Fresno. Copyright Information Copyright © 2007 by California State University, Fresno. This report may be printed and distributed free of charge for academic or planning purposes without the written permission of the copyright holder. Citation as to source, however, is appreciated. Distribution for profit of the material is prohibited without specific permission of the copyright holder. This report was supported through a grant from The California Endowment to California State University, Fresno. The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the funders or the university. The Long Road to Clean Air in the San Joaquin Valley: Facing the Challenge of Public Engagement David Lighthall, Ph.D. John Capitman, Ph.D. Central Valley Health Policy Institute College of Health and Human Services California State University, Fresno California State University, Fresno residents are engaged with the issue. The generation of Introduction knowledge and related strategies to resolve the contradiction between high public concern and low The focus of this report is on a particularly challenged public engagement is a primary motivation for this region, the San Joaquin Valley, and its efforts to meet report. Three elements compose our definition of public public health standards for air quality.1 Our intent is to engagement: knowledge, participation, and democratic provide a wide audience of non-experts with a representation. In respect to knowledge, the public does comprehensive understanding of the air quality policy not have a clear understanding of the air pollution landscape in the San Joaquin Valley, coupled with management process and the government agencies in practical recommendations for enhancing the public’s charge. In turn, only a tiny fraction of the Valley public engagement with air quality policy making in the years to directly participates in the making of air quality policy at come. the regional, state, and federal levels. Nor do most of the There is an increasing recognition in California of the organizations to which Valley residents belong have a critical linkages between environmental change and voice in air quality policy making. public health. Three inter-related issues are paramount, Integral to our emphasis on public engagement is a key each corresponding to a different timeframe of assumption relevant to Valley air quality and other behavioral and public policy adaptation. In the long term, serious environmental health issues: Public health climate change is arguably the most serious public health problems arising from fundamental contradictions challenge, complicated by the fact that its resolution will between the natural environment and society cannot be inherently require substantial international cooperation solved without painful public policy decisions at all levels towards a transformation in global energy systems. The of government. Leadership from above can take us only mid-term challenge is water security, as defined by our so far in this context—decision makers are unlikely to ability to protect water quality and meet growing make those decisions without broad support from an demands. The most immediate challenge is air pollution’s informed public. This is particularly true when the legal threat to public health. Millions of Californians are framework and technological means for meeting air exposed to unhealthy air now, not tomorrow or in quality standards fall short in the face of a unique decades to come. The common denominator for all three regional environment. threats is the global technostructure, as defined by our carbon-based energy system, our modes of The report is written from an interdisciplinary academic transportation, our level of consumption, the dependence perspective that integrates key elements of environmental of our economic system on continued growth, and our geography, political science, and economics in assessing material expectations of the good life. this important public health issue.3 4 5 From this perspective, the health impact from Valley air pollution is The natural features of the San Joaquin Valley make it a socially constructed outcome of incompatibility much more vulnerable to air pollution relative to other between the distinct environment of the region and the regional air basins. Surrounded by mountains that “one size fits all” air quality policy model established restrict air movement, concentrate air pollutants, under the federal Clean Air Act (CAA). Tension around promote thermal inversions, and efficiently produce this contradiction is magnified by the rapid growth of ozone, the San Joaquin Valley is confronting one of the emission sources in the region. As currently most severe air pollution management challenges in the implemented, this federal legislation arguably fails to nation. According to opinion research, this vulnerability provide “equal protection of the air” to residents of the to air pollution is reflected in the strong concern San Joaquin Valley. These conditions also drive and expressed by Valley residents about the threat of air perpetuate market failure, defined as the incapacity of pollution.2 market transactions to fully capture the environmental Yet, as will be shown, only a very small fraction of impacts of producing goods and services. The report also borrows a page from Michael Shellenberger and Ted 1 Central Valley Health Policy Institute California State University, Fresno California State University, Fresno 1 The San Joaquin Valley lies within the jurisdiction of eight counties: Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Tulare. 2 (2007) Baldassare, M., et al. Californians and the Environment. Public Nordhaus in setting forward a constructive critique Policy Institute of California. San Francisco, July. of the strategies and tactics adopted by public The Valley Air Quality interest advocates.6 3 For environmental (aka nature-society) geography see: (1995) Turner II, B. Quandary: Balancing L. Spirals, Bridges, and Tunnels: Engaging Human-Environment Perspectives in Geography? Ecumene 4(2): 196-217. The challenge of sustainable development on a Public Concern with regional scale provides an important context for the 4 For political science see: (2007) Rosenbaum, Walter A. Environmental Politics and Policy. CQ Press, Washington, D.C. report. Meeting this standard entails the difficult task Policy Reform of resolving the tensions between the “Three E’s” - 5 For economics see: (1958) Bator, Francis M. The Anatomy of Market equity, economy, and environment. In short, how to Of all regions in the nation the San Joaquin Valley Failure. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 72(3): 351-379. restore Valley air quality without creating an unfair faces one of the most marked combinations of 6 See The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a distribution of costs to certain communities, while at environmental degradation and poverty. The fertile Post-Environmental World. Available at http://www.thebreakthrough.org/. the same time expanding economic opportunity in irrigated soils of the Valley have made it, acre for the Valley? While the report does not attempt a acre, one of the most productive agricultural regions comprehensive treatment of this issue, the reader is in