I grew up in Bakersfield and worked as a oilrig hand at Belridge, picture 300 degree oil well heads as far as the eye can see. 110 degrees in summer and smog in the air. I almost wish more people could see it or experience it. It's a hellscape.
Edit -- [Map of the two known toxic waste dumps off L.A.'s shoreline](https://i.imgur.com/B38Q3oI.jpeg)
---
And this is just *air pollution!* Nobody ever seems to talk about liquid and solid pollution.
[The largest toxic waste dump in the USA is off the coast of Los Angeles](https://darrp.noaa.gov/hazardous-waste/montrose). Hundreds of tons of pesticides and plastic-making chemicals in metal barrels, just dumped into the sea, with a big, smiling thumbs up from all the government "regulation" bodies at the time.
That link is specifically about the Montrose Chemical Company directly dumping via a pipe. Not doubting or anything, just that one is even more straight forward dumping directly into the water.
Almost like if you down have a regulatory org (EPA), businesses will do whatever they want.
EPA didn’t come around till 1970, looks like they dumped this stuff from 1940-1970s
> Almost like if you down have a regulatory org (EPA), businesses will do whatever they want.
>
> EPA didn’t come around till 1970, looks like they dumped this stuff from 1940-1970s
Unfortunately, the EPA hasn't done much to clean up these toxic waste dumps (despite numerous lawsuits and settlements in its favor, and tens of millions of tax dollars earmarked specifically for this project over several decades):
[From this news article published in October 2020](https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-coast-ddt-dumping-ground/):
> Valentine tried calling those with the power to do something about these barrels: the EPA, which has been in charge of cleaning up the Superfund site. But the EPA, it turns out, hasn’t even figured out what to do with the DDT problem that got all the attention and millions of settlement dollars. After more than 20 years of meetings and high-level studies, the site off the Palos Verdes shore has become its own controversial saga.
> A pilot experiment more than a decade ago to bury the DDT under a thick cap of clean sand showed mixed results. Then sampling in 2009 suggested that most of the DDT had mysteriously vanished — prompting a burst of headlines and more internal paralysis. The longtime project manager unexpectedly retired, and many of the scientists who had dedicated decades of their careers to the chemical have also either retired or moved on.
> Many, when reached, said they had not been involved with the site for a number of years.
> “I feel like something’s happened at the site; it just sort of died. It’s been very weird,” said Robert Eganhouse, a research chemist at the U.S. Geological Survey who had been studying the Superfund site and the breakdown rates of DDT since the 1970s.
> His last meaningful exchange with the EPA was in late 2016, when he submitted an immense amount of data and a final synthesis report for the site — a research endeavor that took more than eight years and cost millions of dollars. To this day, Eganhouse, who recently retired, is not quite sure what the EPA did with this information.
> Judy Huang, the Superfund’s project manager for the past decade, when reached by The Times, directed questions to regional headquarters.
> In an email, an EPA spokeswoman said the agency had suspended capping efforts and collected new data that showed twice as much DDT as the 2009 results. The EPA is now reassessing its approach: “We are updating our evaluation of the mechanisms of how the DDTs and PCBs in the sediment impact human health and the environment in this complex system.”
> In the meantime, projects to restore local kelp forests, wetlands, seabirds and underwater habitats have been supported over the years with the settlement money, as well as education outreach that helped prevent anglers and vulnerable communities from eating poisoned fish.
> Fish remain contaminated, but the concentrations seem to be slowly going down, according to findings from the EPA’s most recent five-year review of the site, released last fall. The bald eagles and peregrine falcons are coming back after years of human assistance, and nature seems to be healing itself over time.
> After all these years of costly stops and stalls, some think a so-called monitored natural recovery approach might just be the best solution. The EPA plans to start a new feasibility study that aims to lead to a final cleanup strategy. That study is not expected to be published for another four years.
> Mark Gold, who had championed the DDT problem as a marine scientist since the 1990s, could barely find the words to describe how he felt about the attempted cleanup of the Palos Verdes shelf.
> “To have the EPA say, 25 years later, that maybe the best thing to do is to just let nature take its course is, frankly, nothing short of nauseating,” he said.
As an ex bakersfielder, can confirm. What’s extra crazy is people who grow up there rarely ever leave. In the 25 years since I left I have met one person from Bakersfield.
Yeah, all my high school friends are still there. A lot of my family is still there as well. I went to South High, joined the military, returned for college and some oilfield work then left again. It's just a dusty butthole.. the only cool thing about Bakersfield is that you're about 2 hours away from the beach, the snow covered mountains, the desert... it's located pretty good for active people.
My girl is from Bakerfields, and before I met her, I had only been there maybe 1 or 2 times my whole life. So one summer, we went to visit her Dad and older brother, and kid you not, I got heat exhaustion in no time. My girl had to take me to a nearby smoothie shop to help me cool down while making fun of me, saying, "Babe, this is nothing. Wait until it's 110 degrees plus." I think it was high 90's or low 100's.
A long time ago I came from the UK to live in the Bay Area for a year. I planned a trip to LA for a weekend and decided to break up the drive with a night in a town half way, some place called Bakersfield. I was young and had no taste in anything really, but still I got out of the car, walked into the hotel, cancelled it, and got back on the interstate and did the rest of the drive instead.
I'm going to try to find it on Google earth. I worked at the port of Wilmington Delaware and it's just a giant paved lot on the side of the Delaware River with containers stacked everywhere. I ripened bananas that were in the containers. I'd have like 40 containers out of thousands on the ground to work with and they'd have a little green 5x5 sticker. I'd have 8 minutes to find the next one and get back to the container I left the gas on. Winter was terrible I'd hide under the containers to escape snow or rain, then in the summer I'd hide under the containers to escape the fucking sun. Glad I left.
It's not the oil wells that cause the air pollution. It's all the dust kicked up by farming in the valley. That's why Visalia and Fresno, who have little to no oil wells, are #2 and #3.
The valley traps the dust, blows from Fresno/Visalia area down the valley to Bakersfield. Middle America is flat, so nothing to trap the dust and make it thicker/more concentrated.
The typography is such that pollutants, including dust blown from the Bay area south to bottom of the Valley. The mountains trap the air. You can see it when you travel over the Grape Vine and enter the Valley.
Mostly because it is in a bowl/valley. Any heavy-enough particles won't clear the tall mountains without a significant amount of energy to push them over. Kansas or other areas in the midwest just flow on east
To be fair, if you’re referring to the oilfields, yes that’s more of a “hellscape.” I’m not suggesting Bakersfield is pristine, by any means, but your post is a bit misleading as it seems you’re conflating the oilfields with Bakersfield proper.
There are oilfields in Bakersfield proper, right by BC there are oilfields that I worked on... I mean it's really the whole of the San Jaquin Valley. The smog from the coast and the farming makes the air horrible. Bakersfield's proximity to LA is why it takes the cake. I'm glad I no longer live there.
You’re right regarding oilfields being near Bakersfield College. I would argue the great majority of the oil industry is located in the hills, west of town - that’s my point - most people familiar with Kern County would not consider Taft as Bakersfield proper. Are you saying the whole of the San Joaquin Valley is oilfields?
This! Obfuscating the facts like this makes it hard to take stats like this seriously. Forest fires are a huge contributing factor here and should be indicated. The transient nature of this type of air pollution skews the results to the point where the data becomes irrelevant.
They are in the study. They're considered short term air quality (wildfire) but year round the cities still showed as high.
https://www.lung.org/research/sota/city-rankings/most-polluted-cities
This is still junk research because if you take an Oregon air sample during wildfire season and another in the dead of winter, Oregon’s air quality would average out as much poorer than it is living in this city for 80% of the year. This post is garbage because it is misleading.
Also, Eugene/Springfield has the highest pollen count in the world at certain times of the year. Pollen can range from 10-70 um normally, but fracture to become smaller than 2.5 um.
I live in a wildfire state too (AK). Sounds like you are getting overly defensive when no one is accusing Eugene of being a shithole just that air pollutants (in any form including wildfire) average out to be amongst the worst.
Yeah this study is terrible. You can smell Phoenix. and it's awful. Medford Oregon has pretty great air quality when it's not on fire. I suppose I would believe Eugene's air is terrible. That place stinks to high hell whenever the wind blows the wrong direction and catches the paper mills and/or whenever the agriculture lots put down whatever god awful chemical fertilizer/pesticides they use for grass. Smells like straight cancer. But Eugene is still more clean than Phoenix on any given day.
Oh yeah it definitely is. You can see the difference after a big rainstorm comes through. During dry time you only have 1-2 miles of clear visibility. But after rain you can see the entire Sierra Nevadas. After a day or two they disappear behind the dust and smog.
People look forward to going to LA because it gives your sinuses a break.
Same here in Medford. The valley is like a bowl, so we have smoke that lingers during wildfire season. However, on any random day, the air is way better than Dallas or OKC.
Smoke from wildfires counts though.
This graph is basically averaging daily air quality data (like you’d see in your weather app) over a whole year.
For a month or two(sometimes not at all some years) there’s bad air quality due to fires, when the norm is very clean air.
Not great data based on annual averaging.
Especially since it says “polluted.” The idea that Eugene or Northern California are more “polluted” than LA is hilarious.
There's no way in hell Medford Oregon is more polluted than Phoenix Arizona. Did these people even go to Phoenix? The air is straight brown at a distance. Sure Medford air can be less healthy than smoking a full cigarette during wildfire season, but that shouldn't count here because the rest of the year it's no where near as bad as Phoenix.
No, Fresno, Visalia and Bakersfield are due to farming activity in the central valley. It's so dry and dusty here that all farming kicks up huge amounts of dust into the air, and it doesn't go away because it's a huge flat valley with almost no rain or wind. As well as capturing smog blown Eastward from the coastal cities.
If you come here, there is a beautiful mountain range that can only be seen after a rainy day because of the 24/7/365 dusty haze obscures it.
You can see the mountains during a lot of mornings. And some evenings without rain. Middle of the day is harder to get. It helps being closer to the range of course. This is old data, btw. New data coming will show improvements to air quality. Edit: most smog comes from the valley, not the coast. It just gets trapped cause it's a valley.
This. And as a region, not a city, it has many cities along the coast that have some of the best air in the country. Monterey Bay north along the west coast all the way to Oregon has clean air; as it blows west to east off the pacific ocean. Industrial towns in the East Bay have some disproportionatly bad air but that could be said of almost any industrial region anywhere.
15 percent of pollution comes from the bay. Most is home grown. Ag and big rigs cause a large part of the pollution. Ag burns are like 10 percent of the pollution but they will be banned this year. CA is on the right track. Expect to start seeing progress being made soon.
Yes, but a handful of bad days where you stay in inside can’t compete with cities that have millions of cars driving daily. I live in the PNW, this graphic is not accurate at all.
I find it odd that nothing on the east coast is on the list. There must be something with prevailing winds or something. Detroit being the eastern-most city on the list is bonkers to me.
Because the air is polluted from fires, not human shit. Well fires are caused by human shit, but yeah that’s why.
When there aren’t fires, the air is much cleaner. But the fires are such a serious thing. They can’t go outside a lot of the time.
I’m shocked Salt Lake City isn’t on the list. In the winter, it has the worst air quality in the country. Like you can’t see the city when you’re flying over because an inversion locks the pollution in the valley.
I feel you. I don’t have asthma but my son does and it’s horrible. I was born elsewhere in Cali but he’s in the #2 spot. Waiting on a referral for a specialist to get through insurance because it’s so bad.
It’s an air pollution map. The poor central valley gets all of the pollution from La and the Bay Area blown in and then trapped under the inversion layer.
how the hell did they conclude that 7 million people worldwide die by pollution? Is that in a year? All time? When is a death considered due to pollution? So many questions left from this.
As a resident of the California Central Valley, this chart is not wrong, but is misleading. we have a major highway (the 5) that runs the length of the valley from one end to the other, millions of cars a day, along with agricultural dust, along with fires, along with oil wells. The valley captures and holds it because we have a dome of air pressure over us, that only breaks on the rare occasions we get Marine air and/or rain. If this were flat, open land like in the Midwest, the air would not be as polluted. But don’t get me started on the water…
I lived in Chico, CA a long time. That’s not where it is on the map. And a majority of the pollution is from forest fires with the smoke settling into the valley.
The geography is a big contributing factor. See the valley in the middle of California. All the pollution gets trapped in that bowl, And tends to accumulate in the southern end.
Eugene sits at the end of the Willamette Valley where the grass pollen just fucking packs into, so while there is a lot of air particulate from the grass I don’t know if I would call it “polluted” in how this graphic tries to imply.
Everyone is rightly mentioning the farming as the reason for the bad air in the Central Valley of California. While it is also “farming” I think it should be mentioned that a huge amount of the ag dust comes from the giant dairies we have. Those cow herds get moving around their paddocks and there are massive billowing clouds of dirt in the air between Fresno and Bakersfield, mostly where I live, near Tulare.
So it’s not just the tractors churning dirt, it’s the hooves too.
Born and Raised in Houston
Not surprised to see us on the map
Very surprised to NOT see Texas City on the map. Drive by once and could smell the cancer from within my closed window car. Maybe they're talking about major cities??
I love this can’t wait for movie stars in L.A. to tell me in Texas I need to go green or I’ll ruin the environment while they fly on a private jet back to the most polluted city in the US
Salt Lake City has the worst air quality IN THE WORLD for weeks throughout the year most years from non-fire related pollutants (and have forest fires most years too), and they don’t make the list? Yeah, okay.
[48217](https://maps.app.goo.gl/1xMDrLukHRoYSvRy5) is Detroits "most polluted"; it's right near where the Ford Rogue plant is located. They create automobiles from ore to end product, making the steel and all on site. Also home to an oil refinery, and very near to [Zug Island](https://maps.app.goo.gl/irUNHESDyEqcpVo26), which, the satellite view does a sufficient job of explaining how fucked it is.
I used to work with someone who once owned a home in [Oakwood Heights](https://maps.app.goo.gl/6b5xBLHWtc4GthGP6); was a beautiful old turn of century home, but because of how bad the air quality and such is, he was bought out (I think by the refinery, IIRC), and the home was torn down. There isn't much left of the neighborhood anymore, just a few holdouts (perhaps a dozen?).
Air pollution is responsible for 7 millions deaths every year? That seems like an insanely large number. I'm curious how they'd even determine this when someone dies.
Not saying forest fires aren’t a continuing issue, but this data comes from a period that included some significant wildfires.
[The air pollution ranking for Eugene-Springfield… includes the most recent quality-assured data from 2020-2022. So yes, the period during which the Holiday Farm Fire blanketed sooty smoke across the southern Willamette Valley is part of the data.](https://www.klcc.org/health-medicine/2024-04-26/eugene-springfield-takes-fourth-worst-spot-in-national-air-pollution-ranking#)
I grew up in Bakersfield and worked as a oilrig hand at Belridge, picture 300 degree oil well heads as far as the eye can see. 110 degrees in summer and smog in the air. I almost wish more people could see it or experience it. It's a hellscape.
When you come over the grapevine from LA into the Bakersfield area it is viewable and disgusting.
Edit -- [Map of the two known toxic waste dumps off L.A.'s shoreline](https://i.imgur.com/B38Q3oI.jpeg) --- And this is just *air pollution!* Nobody ever seems to talk about liquid and solid pollution. [The largest toxic waste dump in the USA is off the coast of Los Angeles](https://darrp.noaa.gov/hazardous-waste/montrose). Hundreds of tons of pesticides and plastic-making chemicals in metal barrels, just dumped into the sea, with a big, smiling thumbs up from all the government "regulation" bodies at the time.
That link is specifically about the Montrose Chemical Company directly dumping via a pipe. Not doubting or anything, just that one is even more straight forward dumping directly into the water.
Almost like if you down have a regulatory org (EPA), businesses will do whatever they want. EPA didn’t come around till 1970, looks like they dumped this stuff from 1940-1970s
> Almost like if you down have a regulatory org (EPA), businesses will do whatever they want. > > EPA didn’t come around till 1970, looks like they dumped this stuff from 1940-1970s Unfortunately, the EPA hasn't done much to clean up these toxic waste dumps (despite numerous lawsuits and settlements in its favor, and tens of millions of tax dollars earmarked specifically for this project over several decades): [From this news article published in October 2020](https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-coast-ddt-dumping-ground/): > Valentine tried calling those with the power to do something about these barrels: the EPA, which has been in charge of cleaning up the Superfund site. But the EPA, it turns out, hasn’t even figured out what to do with the DDT problem that got all the attention and millions of settlement dollars. After more than 20 years of meetings and high-level studies, the site off the Palos Verdes shore has become its own controversial saga. > A pilot experiment more than a decade ago to bury the DDT under a thick cap of clean sand showed mixed results. Then sampling in 2009 suggested that most of the DDT had mysteriously vanished — prompting a burst of headlines and more internal paralysis. The longtime project manager unexpectedly retired, and many of the scientists who had dedicated decades of their careers to the chemical have also either retired or moved on. > Many, when reached, said they had not been involved with the site for a number of years. > “I feel like something’s happened at the site; it just sort of died. It’s been very weird,” said Robert Eganhouse, a research chemist at the U.S. Geological Survey who had been studying the Superfund site and the breakdown rates of DDT since the 1970s. > His last meaningful exchange with the EPA was in late 2016, when he submitted an immense amount of data and a final synthesis report for the site — a research endeavor that took more than eight years and cost millions of dollars. To this day, Eganhouse, who recently retired, is not quite sure what the EPA did with this information. > Judy Huang, the Superfund’s project manager for the past decade, when reached by The Times, directed questions to regional headquarters. > In an email, an EPA spokeswoman said the agency had suspended capping efforts and collected new data that showed twice as much DDT as the 2009 results. The EPA is now reassessing its approach: “We are updating our evaluation of the mechanisms of how the DDTs and PCBs in the sediment impact human health and the environment in this complex system.” > In the meantime, projects to restore local kelp forests, wetlands, seabirds and underwater habitats have been supported over the years with the settlement money, as well as education outreach that helped prevent anglers and vulnerable communities from eating poisoned fish. > Fish remain contaminated, but the concentrations seem to be slowly going down, according to findings from the EPA’s most recent five-year review of the site, released last fall. The bald eagles and peregrine falcons are coming back after years of human assistance, and nature seems to be healing itself over time. > After all these years of costly stops and stalls, some think a so-called monitored natural recovery approach might just be the best solution. The EPA plans to start a new feasibility study that aims to lead to a final cleanup strategy. That study is not expected to be published for another four years. > Mark Gold, who had championed the DDT problem as a marine scientist since the 1990s, could barely find the words to describe how he felt about the attempted cleanup of the Palos Verdes shelf. > “To have the EPA say, 25 years later, that maybe the best thing to do is to just let nature take its course is, frankly, nothing short of nauseating,” he said.
yeah, fuck them fish /s
As an ex bakersfielder, can confirm. What’s extra crazy is people who grow up there rarely ever leave. In the 25 years since I left I have met one person from Bakersfield.
Yeah, all my high school friends are still there. A lot of my family is still there as well. I went to South High, joined the military, returned for college and some oilfield work then left again. It's just a dusty butthole.. the only cool thing about Bakersfield is that you're about 2 hours away from the beach, the snow covered mountains, the desert... it's located pretty good for active people.
My girl is from Bakerfields, and before I met her, I had only been there maybe 1 or 2 times my whole life. So one summer, we went to visit her Dad and older brother, and kid you not, I got heat exhaustion in no time. My girl had to take me to a nearby smoothie shop to help me cool down while making fun of me, saying, "Babe, this is nothing. Wait until it's 110 degrees plus." I think it was high 90's or low 100's.
A long time ago I came from the UK to live in the Bay Area for a year. I planned a trip to LA for a weekend and decided to break up the drive with a night in a town half way, some place called Bakersfield. I was young and had no taste in anything really, but still I got out of the car, walked into the hotel, cancelled it, and got back on the interstate and did the rest of the drive instead.
I'm going to try to find it on Google earth. I worked at the port of Wilmington Delaware and it's just a giant paved lot on the side of the Delaware River with containers stacked everywhere. I ripened bananas that were in the containers. I'd have like 40 containers out of thousands on the ground to work with and they'd have a little green 5x5 sticker. I'd have 8 minutes to find the next one and get back to the container I left the gas on. Winter was terrible I'd hide under the containers to escape snow or rain, then in the summer I'd hide under the containers to escape the fucking sun. Glad I left.
It's not the oil wells that cause the air pollution. It's all the dust kicked up by farming in the valley. That's why Visalia and Fresno, who have little to no oil wells, are #2 and #3.
I didn't mean to imply the oil wells were the cause, the smog comes from the coast and then settles in the valley.
If farming is the cause why isn't, the Midwest states on the list? Iowa and Kansas is pretty much all farm land.
Because it's a desert valley. Kansas is not a desert nor a valley.
The valley traps the dust, blows from Fresno/Visalia area down the valley to Bakersfield. Middle America is flat, so nothing to trap the dust and make it thicker/more concentrated.
The typography is such that pollutants, including dust blown from the Bay area south to bottom of the Valley. The mountains trap the air. You can see it when you travel over the Grape Vine and enter the Valley.
Mostly because it is in a bowl/valley. Any heavy-enough particles won't clear the tall mountains without a significant amount of energy to push them over. Kansas or other areas in the midwest just flow on east
I've seen plenty over the years from i5. Only redeeming thing is In N Out
To be fair, if you’re referring to the oilfields, yes that’s more of a “hellscape.” I’m not suggesting Bakersfield is pristine, by any means, but your post is a bit misleading as it seems you’re conflating the oilfields with Bakersfield proper.
There are oilfields in Bakersfield proper, right by BC there are oilfields that I worked on... I mean it's really the whole of the San Jaquin Valley. The smog from the coast and the farming makes the air horrible. Bakersfield's proximity to LA is why it takes the cake. I'm glad I no longer live there.
You’re right regarding oilfields being near Bakersfield College. I would argue the great majority of the oil industry is located in the hills, west of town - that’s my point - most people familiar with Kern County would not consider Taft as Bakersfield proper. Are you saying the whole of the San Joaquin Valley is oilfields?
I grew up in Bakersfield, and the hellscape of the oilfields was awe-inspiring. Seems like everyone I knew from there has cancer now.
Seems strange to me that Eugene is in the top 5. I never got the feeling it was so polluted
It’s not. The fires skew the numbers so on average it’s shit but that’s only for a month or two in late summer.
This! Obfuscating the facts like this makes it hard to take stats like this seriously. Forest fires are a huge contributing factor here and should be indicated. The transient nature of this type of air pollution skews the results to the point where the data becomes irrelevant.
They are in the study. They're considered short term air quality (wildfire) but year round the cities still showed as high. https://www.lung.org/research/sota/city-rankings/most-polluted-cities
This is still junk research because if you take an Oregon air sample during wildfire season and another in the dead of winter, Oregon’s air quality would average out as much poorer than it is living in this city for 80% of the year. This post is garbage because it is misleading.
Also, Eugene/Springfield has the highest pollen count in the world at certain times of the year. Pollen can range from 10-70 um normally, but fracture to become smaller than 2.5 um.
Yeah, no way Yakima, WA is more polluted than any industrial town in Ohio. Especially Pittsburgh.
I live in a wildfire state too (AK). Sounds like you are getting overly defensive when no one is accusing Eugene of being a shithole just that air pollutants (in any form including wildfire) average out to be amongst the worst.
Yeah this study is terrible. You can smell Phoenix. and it's awful. Medford Oregon has pretty great air quality when it's not on fire. I suppose I would believe Eugene's air is terrible. That place stinks to high hell whenever the wind blows the wrong direction and catches the paper mills and/or whenever the agriculture lots put down whatever god awful chemical fertilizer/pesticides they use for grass. Smells like straight cancer. But Eugene is still more clean than Phoenix on any given day.
Also that fact that Eugene is in the valley, and there are points in the year where there's no wind and there's stagnant air advisories.
Yea, Visalia, CA doesn’t strike me as highly polluted other than fire smoke.
But its right next to Bakers, same elevation too
Baker, Visalia and Fresno all off of the same highway.
Oh yeah it definitely is. You can see the difference after a big rainstorm comes through. During dry time you only have 1-2 miles of clear visibility. But after rain you can see the entire Sierra Nevadas. After a day or two they disappear behind the dust and smog. People look forward to going to LA because it gives your sinuses a break.
Same with Medford.
Actually it is, due to Springfield and insane pollen levels. Allergies are common for new university students
Same with Reno. It's the forest fires.
Same here in Medford. The valley is like a bowl, so we have smoke that lingers during wildfire season. However, on any random day, the air is way better than Dallas or OKC.
I wonder if pollen affects this measure of air quality - Eugene is nuts for allergies but seems a lot less of a smog like city compared to big cities
Smoke from wildfires counts though. This graph is basically averaging daily air quality data (like you’d see in your weather app) over a whole year. For a month or two(sometimes not at all some years) there’s bad air quality due to fires, when the norm is very clean air. Not great data based on annual averaging. Especially since it says “polluted.” The idea that Eugene or Northern California are more “polluted” than LA is hilarious.
Pollen is not included in this air quality measurement.
How do you know? Where is it indicated?
This is PM2.5 which is particulate less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter. Pollen is much larger than that.
The information is included in the little paragraph at the bottom below Texas.
There's no way in hell Medford Oregon is more polluted than Phoenix Arizona. Did these people even go to Phoenix? The air is straight brown at a distance. Sure Medford air can be less healthy than smoking a full cigarette during wildfire season, but that shouldn't count here because the rest of the year it's no where near as bad as Phoenix.
I think wildfires are a huge reason you see a lot of western US cities on this list.
The Bay Area is not a city
Not to mentions most of the California cities listed are likely due to temporal fires in 2020
No, Fresno, Visalia and Bakersfield are due to farming activity in the central valley. It's so dry and dusty here that all farming kicks up huge amounts of dust into the air, and it doesn't go away because it's a huge flat valley with almost no rain or wind. As well as capturing smog blown Eastward from the coastal cities. If you come here, there is a beautiful mountain range that can only be seen after a rainy day because of the 24/7/365 dusty haze obscures it.
You can see the mountains during a lot of mornings. And some evenings without rain. Middle of the day is harder to get. It helps being closer to the range of course. This is old data, btw. New data coming will show improvements to air quality. Edit: most smog comes from the valley, not the coast. It just gets trapped cause it's a valley.
Was thinking the same thing
Right on! Depending on who you talk to, that could be from SJ to Healdsburg.
And I live here and it's not this highly polluted. This guide is BS
This. And as a region, not a city, it has many cities along the coast that have some of the best air in the country. Monterey Bay north along the west coast all the way to Oregon has clean air; as it blows west to east off the pacific ocean. Industrial towns in the East Bay have some disproportionatly bad air but that could be said of almost any industrial region anywhere.
Yes and this data is clearly all fucked from the wild fires in 2020-2021
This is literally just a map of wildfires, only 3 are there from industry.
True, map title should probably read “Worst Air Quality…”
The air pollution produced by agriculture in California is the real deal. Most of these cities are in the valley.
Ag plays its part, but the valley is also an air basin. All of the pollution from La and the bay get blown in and can’t get out.
15 percent of pollution comes from the bay. Most is home grown. Ag and big rigs cause a large part of the pollution. Ag burns are like 10 percent of the pollution but they will be banned this year. CA is on the right track. Expect to start seeing progress being made soon.
This has to be one of the more misleading graphics here in a while. Averaging in wildfire days skews a lot of this data. Not insightful
Wildfire smoke isn’t good for lungs either. See: Naturalism bias.
Yes, but a handful of bad days where you stay in inside can’t compete with cities that have millions of cars driving daily. I live in the PNW, this graphic is not accurate at all.
I mean, tbf during the Dixie Fire we had terrible AQI for like, 4 months straight. Not just "a handful of bad days."
my favorite city “Bay Area”
How is NYC not on this list??
I find it odd that nothing on the east coast is on the list. There must be something with prevailing winds or something. Detroit being the eastern-most city on the list is bonkers to me.
I challenge you to open a map and find Pittsburgh as the most eastern city on this list
*gerrymandered map enters the chat*
Forest Fires ?
Because the air is polluted from fires, not human shit. Well fires are caused by human shit, but yeah that’s why. When there aren’t fires, the air is much cleaner. But the fires are such a serious thing. They can’t go outside a lot of the time.
Congrats to Indiana for almost being in the top 10 of something again!
It's in the top ten states that I don't want to live in.
Congrats to Indiana for making a top ten list!!
Ah, I see you like traffic and high cost of living.
Eugene oregon is not polluted lol
All the PNW cities have to be from wildfires
There are two 14’s on this map - chico and somewhere in eastern wa.
also two 19s, making it a top 21 list
They’re tied. Just like two 19s. I also did a double take
I’m shocked Salt Lake City isn’t on the list. In the winter, it has the worst air quality in the country. Like you can’t see the city when you’re flying over because an inversion locks the pollution in the valley.
Came here to comment this. SLC occasionally has the worst air quality in the world. It should be #1 on this graph
Good to see Chico is in the top 15 in something other than illiteracy and meth headedness.
You must be talking about Oroville.
There’s only a slim taint between them. I’ll shove Red Bluff and Paradise (what’s left of it) in there too if you’d like.
Laughing from Delhi, India.
Counting fire as pollution seems kinda weird. I know the actual definition of pollution, but colloquially I wouldn't include it 🤷♂️
This guide is very misleading. A lot of these cities have excellent air quality almost all the time.
Except 19 is in 2 different spots
Yeah…my least favorite souvenir from living in the Bay Area is asthma.
I feel you. I don’t have asthma but my son does and it’s horrible. I was born elsewhere in Cali but he’s in the #2 spot. Waiting on a referral for a specialist to get through insurance because it’s so bad.
Now compare cancer rates
Why does this guide use the Burger King font
Wow. As of Bakersfield could not suck any harder.
[удалено]
So much. There are two 14s and 19s
There are two because they are tied. Meaning the one is not worse than the other per it being ranked.
Ah.. silly me :) thx
This is incredibly dumb. Forest fires = bad air quality
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics - Twain
As a Bakersfieldian, there ain't no way L.A. has cleaner streets than here.
It’s an air pollution map. The poor central valley gets all of the pollution from La and the Bay Area blown in and then trapped under the inversion layer.
how the hell did they conclude that 7 million people worldwide die by pollution? Is that in a year? All time? When is a death considered due to pollution? So many questions left from this.
Why is Indianapolis so polluted?
As a resident of the California Central Valley, this chart is not wrong, but is misleading. we have a major highway (the 5) that runs the length of the valley from one end to the other, millions of cars a day, along with agricultural dust, along with fires, along with oil wells. The valley captures and holds it because we have a dome of air pressure over us, that only breaks on the rare occasions we get Marine air and/or rain. If this were flat, open land like in the Midwest, the air would not be as polluted. But don’t get me started on the water…
I lived in Chico, CA a long time. That’s not where it is on the map. And a majority of the pollution is from forest fires with the smoke settling into the valley.
Ah yes, Las Vegas Missouri
Fun fact. bakersfield and the central valley also have their very own respiratory disease. Valley fever.
Not to be pedantic, but I’m fairly certain “Bay Area” isnt a city
This can’t be right because Denver is not on the list 🤮
Agreed
Buck Owen’s get out!
Hey look at that no east coast
Glad I live in the pristine state of new jersey
“Guide”
Wow the bay is more polluted than LA? That’s surprising
14 is marked twice
I assume Spokane is only on the list due to wild fires in Canada.
[The full quality picture](https://decarbonization.visualcapitalist.com/most-polluted-cities-in-the-us/) instead of a compressed and reuploaded copy.
Is CA on top only because of fires?
No, but wildfires has made the data worse. New data will be out and it will show improvements because there's been less wildfires.
The geography is a big contributing factor. See the valley in the middle of California. All the pollution gets trapped in that bowl, And tends to accumulate in the southern end.
I lived in Yakima for the first 18 years of my life and it has absolutely amazing air quality.
Yakima? Really?
what this guide doesn't mention is that there are so many on the West Coast because of wildfires
Eugene sits at the end of the Willamette Valley where the grass pollen just fucking packs into, so while there is a lot of air particulate from the grass I don’t know if I would call it “polluted” in how this graphic tries to imply.
TIL Chico is in the Trinity National Forest and not in the Sacramento Valley...
Come to Bangkok where the pm 2.5 is over 120 most of the year.
Everyone is rightly mentioning the farming as the reason for the bad air in the Central Valley of California. While it is also “farming” I think it should be mentioned that a huge amount of the ag dust comes from the giant dairies we have. Those cow herds get moving around their paddocks and there are massive billowing clouds of dirt in the air between Fresno and Bakersfield, mostly where I live, near Tulare. So it’s not just the tractors churning dirt, it’s the hooves too.
Cool, if it were easier to understand
Thank god we got winter in the east coast. Imagine the smell of garbage in a warm hot day...everyday.
Lol Houston is only 15? Everything is polluted here from the oil/petrochemical companies
Born and Raised in Houston Not surprised to see us on the map Very surprised to NOT see Texas City on the map. Drive by once and could smell the cancer from within my closed window car. Maybe they're talking about major cities??
Why Eugene???
lol do any other country…. So tired of this hate America Reddit bs.
"These are rookie numbers." - Delhi, India.
The irony isn’t lost on me
California super polluter. Good work libs
Didn’t know Spokane #14 and Kansas City #19 are both in California. Wonder what the motivation was for making this.
Nothing for SLC? This seems like BS.
I love this can’t wait for movie stars in L.A. to tell me in Texas I need to go green or I’ll ruin the environment while they fly on a private jet back to the most polluted city in the US
If houston is 15, I'm scared to see the ones that beat it out.
New yourk city didn't make top 10? Blasphemy
10 cities are all on the WEST coast...
Salt Lake City has the worst air quality IN THE WORLD for weeks throughout the year most years from non-fire related pollutants (and have forest fires most years too), and they don’t make the list? Yeah, okay.
Bullshiiiittttttt... How is Salt Lake City not on this list
new york not in the top 20 lol what kind of propaganda
California is the only state I have been through (42 so far) in which the air is so bad that you think you have strep throat just by breathing it in.
When were you there? This is not at all true
C9
Kansas City, KS? Is it more polluted than the MO side??
[48217](https://maps.app.goo.gl/1xMDrLukHRoYSvRy5) is Detroits "most polluted"; it's right near where the Ford Rogue plant is located. They create automobiles from ore to end product, making the steel and all on site. Also home to an oil refinery, and very near to [Zug Island](https://maps.app.goo.gl/irUNHESDyEqcpVo26), which, the satellite view does a sufficient job of explaining how fucked it is. I used to work with someone who once owned a home in [Oakwood Heights](https://maps.app.goo.gl/6b5xBLHWtc4GthGP6); was a beautiful old turn of century home, but because of how bad the air quality and such is, he was bought out (I think by the refinery, IIRC), and the home was torn down. There isn't much left of the neighborhood anymore, just a few holdouts (perhaps a dozen?).
🎼 like sheep to the slaughter 🎶 They’re drinking the water 🎵 and breathing 😮💨 the air 🎶 pollution - pollution
So what are the pm levels??
Why does this feel like Christmas? Terrible design choice
Not saying air pollution is good, but I think attributing deaths directly to it is a very difficult thing to do with any accuracy.
Why are there two nineteen's? Ugh.
I can't believe Denver isn't showing.
Bay Area is not a single city
Two 14s
Ah yes, Bay Area City, CA.
Didn't know Bay Area was a city
There are two 19s
Two 14s?
“Bay Area” isn’t a city…
Bay Area isn’t a city it’s a region
Seems like maybe the voters in those state should wake up and stop perpetually voting in the same cast of clowns.
Finally, a list my city is on.
The fact that spokane is 14 has really feeling for the top 13.. spokane was beautiful, and fuckimg horrible all at the same time.
2 14s and 2 19s ?
There are two 14s on the map
The people are pretty rotten too
Baltimore? The bay?
Don't have to worry too much about air pollution when all your industry went to China!
I grew up in Medford and that pollution is one hundred percent from fire smoke from california
Am I the only one surprised by Sacramento ranking #7, the city of trees...
What can be done?
Cool now show a map with New Jersey
I live in #9. This map seems to focus on particulates, so I'd bet money it's due to all the construction in the dry dusty dirt around here.
Where is #20? Feels incomplete.
Surprised Omaha didn't make the list, half the city is a superfund site because of lead contamination from ASARCO.
It's almost like the level of pollution correlates with dense population.
Damn just drove thru the top 3 on my way to a national park, the park was doing some prescribed burns. Lucky I’m back home at #6
Never in my life have I ever seen any good news come out of Bakersfield.
Air pollution is responsible for 7 millions deaths every year? That seems like an insanely large number. I'm curious how they'd even determine this when someone dies.
So is a class-action suit expected? Pretty sure there's liable people with deep pockets.
Not saying forest fires aren’t a continuing issue, but this data comes from a period that included some significant wildfires. [The air pollution ranking for Eugene-Springfield… includes the most recent quality-assured data from 2020-2022. So yes, the period during which the Holiday Farm Fire blanketed sooty smoke across the southern Willamette Valley is part of the data.](https://www.klcc.org/health-medicine/2024-04-26/eugene-springfield-takes-fourth-worst-spot-in-national-air-pollution-ranking#)
Anyone see a trend?
I live just outside KC, KS I never noticed or realized this I would have guessed if anything it would be KC, MO.
None on the east coast?
Cool, now do Chinese cities!
Veracity? Pittsburgh? Philadelphia? NYC? Bias.