Yes siree, we’re serious folk here in Bakersfield, Kern County’s largest city. We strive to be Number 1 in whatever we do.
We’re Number 1 in carrots. We produce eight of every ten carrots produced in the USA.
We’re Number 1 in California oil production, (13th in US oil production), pumping three-quarters of all oil in California.
We’re on top and we know how to stay there too.
For the past five years we’ve led the entire country with the worst level of year-round particle pollution. Yes, Bakersfield is again Number Eins in air pollution. We again topped laggards like Los Angeles and Houston.
In the most recent State of the Air report from that leftist, radical organization, the American Lung Association, Bakersfield tops two of its three charts.
Bakersfield Air Quality Ranking
- Ranked 1 worst for 24-hour particle pollution out of 223 metropolitan areas
- Ranked 1 worst for annual particle pollution out of 204 metropolitan areas
- Ranked 3 worst for high ozone days out of 228 metropolitan areas behind only Los Angeles and Visalia, California.
The Lung Association has been analyzing data from official air quality monitors to compile its State of the Air report for the past 25 years. And Bakersfield has been reliably among the finalists.
Here’s what the report has to say about Bakersfield and pollution rival Los Angeles.
“. . . the metropolitan areas that ranked worst in the country for each of the three pollutant measures were unchanged from last year’s report. Bakersfield, California topped the list for worst short-term particle pollution again this year. Bakersfield also continued as the metropolitan area with the worst level of year-round particle pollution for the 5th year in a row. Los Angeles remains the city with the worst ozone pollution in the nation, as it has been in 24 of the 25 years of reporting in “State of the Air”– even though city residents are exposed to unhealthy levels of ozone an average of 55 days a year fewer than now than they were in 2000.”
We’re Number 1 and with the slow rate of EV adoption in Kern County, we expect to remain top of the air pollution charts next year as well. (Last year only 11% of new car sales in Kern County were EVs versus the state-wide average of 25%).
For those who don’t think air pollution harms real people or believe these numbers are simply sterile statistics, they’re invited to one of our monthly Parkinson’s Disease Support Group meetings. There they can meet people who lived and worked here in Parkinson’s Alley and breathed Bakersfield’s polluted air.
Not surprisingly, April is Parkinson’s Awareness Month.
