Mexico Fires (Int'l Secondhand Smoke)

San Antonio Express ^ | 5/3/2003 | Christopher Anderson

[sam_paine]

Mexico fires again cited as cause of area's haze

By Christopher Anderson

San Antonio Express-News

Web Posted : 05/03/2003 12:00 AM

Smoke from fires in Mexico and Central America is causing the gray haze hanging over San Antonio and much of Texas, state environmental officials said.

And it looks like the imported air pollution will become even more apparent in coming days.

"We're beginning to see a lot of that coming over," said Richard Garcia, director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's regional office in San Antonio. "There's a dry front, and the wind is blowing this direction."

Bryan Lambeth, a meteorologist for the agency, said the amount of smoke from the south that started drifting noticeably into South Texas and Central Texas on Thursday is as high as it's been since 1998.

In May of that year, suffocating smoke originating from an inordinate number of Mexican agricultural burns and wildfires triggered three weeks' worth of health alerts in Texas and smudged the sky over much of the United States and parts of Canada.

It also intensified ozone levels in San Antonio to such a degree that the Environmental Protection Agency excused several high ozone readings.

Lambeth said ozone levels remain relatively low for now and relatively unchanged by the imported smoke.

When excessive, ozone can cause health problems — especially for children, the elderly and people with breathing difficulties.

Lambeth said a bigger concern is likely to be particulate matter in the smoke itself. Such airborne particles can aggravate asthma, cause coughing, make breathing painful and lead to bronchitis and decreased lung function.

While air monitors are detecting increased levels of particulate matter, they have not yet reached levels that the Environmental Protection Agency considers a threat to sensitive groups.

That could change. More smoke from slash-and-burn agriculture and other fires in Mexico and Central America is expected to arrive in Texas starting Sunday and continuing into the week because of stronger winds.

"It looks like the heavy smoke production is continuing, and we haven't really had the worst-case wind pattern yet," Lambeth said. "It does look like the worst-case wind patterns will be here Sunday, Monday and Tuesday."

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canderson@express-news.net

05/03/2003

[sam_paine]

This is apparently not a problem for environmentalists who are worried about second hand smoke from tiny little cigarettes.

Think about it: all second hand smoke can only be a fraction of all the tobacco fields in the US south on fire at once.  

This is all of Mexico and Guatemala....and burning really wierd trees and plants, too.

  Surely this smudgy sky is more dangerous than smoke at a bar on Fridays. Nope, the enviro-whackos don't care because this fire does not benefit corporations. So it's benevolent smoke.  

What we need is to restart the old Ford 8N tractor lines, kick out a bunch of brand new 50-yr-old low-tech tractors and brush-hawgs for $1000/pop and give 100,000 of them to farmers in Mexico so they can "selectively" mow and quit setting their country on fire to clear it.   (And take that $100M spent "creating jobs for the environment" away from the EPA budget.....)  

[cweese]

...yeah, i was wondering when the tree huggers were going to start their mass protests, sit-ins, and other such demonstrations against this muck in the sky...friggin' hypocrites, as usual...

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Flying into Mexico City, you can smell the city's trash incinerators hundreds of miles out while you're still aboard the airplane.

[Paleo Conservative]

The smoke this year isn't as bad a two years ago.

[sam_paine]

I thought it was 1998 that it was really bad.

I don't ever recall it like that growing up in the 70's or 80's, tho. Do you?

[Paleo Conservative]

I thought it was 1998 that it was really bad.

I don't ever recall it like that growing up in the 70's or 80's, tho. Do you?

Yes 1998 was the absolute worst. You're right I can't remember it being that bad during the 70's and 80's. I think it is worst during drought years, because there is no opportunity for rain to cleans the dust and soot particles from the atmosphere.

[cogitator]

Carbon monoxide concentration from Yucatan fires

For the color scale, go here:

Pollution from Fires in Central America