'Accept changes'

By Sallie Mook
Auberry

(Updated Thursday, January 2, 2003, 4:41 PM)

The basic fact about our air pollution is that there are already too many people, cows, cars, trucks and fireplaces in the San Joaquin Valley. Mother Nature cannot cope right now with the waste products of our technology, lifestyle and overpopulation. People who hate taxes and government regulation should realize that as we become more and more overcrowded, trying to have cities that are livable will become more expensive and require more limits on individual freedom.

If the regulations necessary to clean our air make growth in industries, factory farms, freeways and diesel engines uneconomic, so be it. Like the gentleman who said he would move back east if he couldn't use his fireplace on smoggy nights, some worthy notions will have to go somewhere else. (I don't notice that many years of trying to attract new industries has changed our dismal unemployment rate or poverty level.)

If our Valley is to have healthy air, people will have to accept changes in land use, farming practices and especially the continued growth of sprawling subdivisions and polluting industries. It would be helpful if federal, state, county, city and district governments were brave enough to tell us what will actually have to be done to meet the air quality standards required by law.