Sunrise finds farmhands inspecting muddy irrigation ditches that bring clear, cold San Joaquin River water to east-side vineyards and orchards filled with sweet fruit. A pickup cruises slowly on an otherwise deserted road.

DUST FIGHTS: In the still dawn air, a Firebaugh-area farmer levels his field and kicks up dust that settles in a foglike manner. In 2001, farmers fought a new rule to curb dust in the Valley. (Mark Crosse / The Fresno Bee)

The scene could be a poster to entice big-city people away from crowded freeways and industrial air pollution.

But this bucolic landscape is not so sleepy, and the barnyard is not so benign. Air pollution doesn't just come from big cities.

Tons of pollutants come from large, modern agriculture, and farmers have long resisted some of the air pollution controls common for other Valley industries.

Air pollution district figures tell the story:

During summer, the $14 billion agriculture industry creates more lung-searing air pollution than the Valley's eight highest-polluting large businesses combined. These businesses include oil-producer Aera Energy of Bakersfield as well as glass manufacturer Libby Owens Ford Co. in Lathrop.

For one of the two major, smog-making pollutants, reactive organic gases, livestock waste is projected to pass cars in 2005. Farm equipment in 2005 will run second only to heavy-duty diesel trucks for nitrogen oxides, the other major smog ingredient.

Farming accounts for 54% of the particulate matter, far and away the biggest contributor of particle pollution in the Valley.

Yet the Valley's largest industry has followed few air rules for decades.

State law exempted farm field activities from air pollution permits in the early 1970s. Farming has been largely excluded from state air laws since the 1940s.

"It doesn't make sense," says lawyer Brent Newell of the Centers for Race, Poverty and the Environment, which has filed legal action over dairies in several Valley counties since 1998. "It's sinful. Ag is not being regulated because there is a lack of political will."

Until the past year, the exemption seemed bulletproof, creating what environmentalists call a "hands-off" regulatory approach to plowing, discing, harvesting, raising animals and other farming activities.

But the exemption is on the ropes. Federal officials this year have stepped in.

Prompted by an environmental lawsuit, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that large farms will be required this May to enter a program that is largely an information-gathering exercise to identify pollution sources and track them.

It will give San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District regulators what they need to make rules to control dirty farm diesel engines and dairy emissions, agriculture's biggest air pollution problems.

Normally, the state would run such a permit program. But EPA probably will have to enforce it until the state repeals the exemption that keeps farms out of such programs. State officials have given no indication yet that they will repeal it.

California will pay dearly if the exemption isn't lifted next year, federal officials say. By late 2003, EPA will force new or expanding businesses to pay extra fees. By 2004, the federal government will freeze billions of road-building dollars for California.

Will all this curb farm pollution next year? Probably not.

It could take months or even years to pass rules. The rules must go through the Valley air board, which must go through a process that includes workshops and public comment.

DUST BOWL: A worker rakes almonds into a row, kicking up dust in an orchard about 10 miles north of Coalinga. Farmers say they have oiled more than 700 unpaved roads and watered other routes to keep down dust pollution. (Mark Crosse / The Fresno Bee)

Environmentalists say such rule-making is a political process that can still be influenced by the farming industry.

"We will be watching," says lawyer Newell.

The Valley air district could have written some farm pollution rules years ago, legal experts say. The state exemption only prevents the government from forcing farms into permit programs. Nobody said anything about enforcing a few rules.

Environmentalists say powerful political connections have kept the district rules off the books and information about dirty farm diesel engines, dust and dairy emissions away from the public.

Farmers say the criticisms are unfair. They say research is not conclusive, and one-size-fits-all methods of measuring pollution used around the country would not be suited to the Valley.

Even so, agriculture committed years ago to clean up its air pollution, they say. With the help of a state incentive program, farmers have replaced more than 2,000 dirty diesel engines used for pumping water.

There also are natural benefits to agriculture, farmers argue. Some studies suggest plants can remove a small percentage of pollution from the air.

Millions of trees and vines produce oxygen through photosynthesis, says farmer Paul Betancourt, former president of the Fresno County Farm Bureau.

For example, he says, "It is estimated that one acre of rice scrubs about 23,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air, roughly the same amount produced by a typical automobile annually."

Local air officials don't have a detailed analysis of farming's effects, because they have been focused on bigger pollution reductions, from sources such as large industries.

Valley regulators say they need more research, particularly on dairy emissions, which are being studied extensively now.

But, from what regulators know, they estimate that by summer 2005, livestock waste and pesticides will combine for 26.3% of so-called reactive organic gases that turn into smog. That's 117 tons a day in the warm months.

Livestock waste and pesticides would be the top two emissions sources for these gases.

That's enough to launch regulation, environmentalists say. They say that agriculture, like any industry facing higher bills for pollution control, is dragging its feet.

Environmentalists trace farm-air politics to the early 1970s state Health and Safety Code. But, dating back to 1947 when California's first air quality law passed, agriculture has simply not been considered a source of air pollutants.

In the 1970s, after the federal Clean Air Act was passed, the farm exemption was lumped into the state's consolidated air pollution regulations. The law was enacted in 1976.

Farm historians and economists do not know how the obscure exemption came to be, but critics see a coordinated effort to keep it in place.

Harry Foster, chief executive for Family Health Care Network in Tulare County, says agriculture seems untouchable.

Foster, who participated on an air district permit review board a few years ago, believes the air board should have been making noise about farming for years:

"We seem to be looking the other way. The silence is deafening."

Not all of farming is responsible, environmentalists say. It's the larger farms, the ones they call factory farms.

The U.S. Farm Census shows there are 27,489 farms on more than 9.5 million acres of Valley land. More than 80% of the acreage is divided among about 5,000 farms.

Many large farms have grouped older diesel engines to pump water around-the-clock at certain times of the year.

These large operations can easily exceed 25 tons of pollutants a year, which would qualify them for a permit as "large sources" if state law allowed them to be regulated. That would put them in the same category with industries such as petroleum.

Though the state exempts farms from air permit programs, the federal Clean Air Act does allow them to be regulated. Environmentalists say they waited years for EPA to do it.

OZONE ALERT: David Grantz, director of UC's Kearney Agricultural Center in Parlier, studies the effects of ozone on plants inside plastic chambers. (Mark Crosse / The Fresno Bee)

But EPA balked last fall. Officials explained they needed three more years for study. The National Academy of Sciences brought together two dozen scientists to study farm air emissions, says Amy Zimpfer, deputy director of the air division in the West.

Environmentalists didn't buy the argument. Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund and the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment filed suit. In short order, EPA agreed to enforce the permit program on farms.

Farm reaction

These environmental lawsuits make farmers and farm lobbyists bristle. They ask where the environmentalists were when the hard work on air quality began 10 years ago.

"For the last decade, agriculture has been helping to make improvements in the air," says lobbyist Manuel Cunha Jr., president of the Nisei Farmers League.

Farmers rarely get the credit they deserve for working on air pollution, says another lobbyist, Roger Isom, vice president of the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Associations.

The cotton-ginning industry is not exempt from air regulation, he says. Food processing and post-harvest activities -- refining, drying, pasteurization, packing and cheese-making -- are regulated under federal law.

"It's not like ag is an industrial source that's going day after day," he says. "It's seasonal. The question is how can we do our share and not be put out of business?

"We want to reduce pollution. I've got a daughter with asthma. I breathe the same air."

Cunha says farmers have been replacing old, polluting diesel engines with newer, cleaner-burning diesels over the past several years. Farmers know smog can cause a 20% to 30% production decline in grapes, cotton, oranges, onions, beans and other crops.

Local air officials confirm farmers have replaced more than half the estimated 3,850 stationary ag pumping engines in the Valley over the last three years. Farmers have received state help through an incentive program, which provides some of the money they need to buy new, cleaner-burning diesel engines.

And the state has required farmers to cut back on pesticides, which contribute 40 tons of smog-forming gases a day to the air in summer. In the last six years, pesticide use has dipped by more than 20%.

Farmers say they have worked on the dust problem, too. They have oiled more than 700 unpaved roads as well as regularly watered other unpaved routes to keep down dust pollution and control insects.

But farmers must pay for oiling unpaved roads and replacing diesel engines. Betancourt, a Kerman-area grower, says many farmers often use older engines to make it through another year in a business that has slumped.

Farmers are concerned about the environment, but finances must be a major part of the decision-making process, he says:

"Some people may have the impression we've been given a big exemption and we're abusing it. For 15 years, I've watered my roads. Sure, it keeps down the dust, but I do it to keep mites off of the crops. We do things that make sense economically and environmentally."

The politics

Agriculture's good sense extends to political connections in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. Farmers have effective lobbyists.

COMPARED TO OIL: Some large farming operations easily exceed 25 tons of pollutants a year, which would put them in the same "large sources" category as high-producing oil companies in Bakersfield. (Mark Crosse / The Fresno Bee)

Like representatives from any industry, lobbyists, such as Cunha, make their case privately with lawmakers and bureaucrats.

But in the last 18 months, two public examples of their work surfaced in the Valley.

In March, Michael Kenny, executive officer of the state Air Resources Board, publicly raised the possibility of "no-spray" pesticide days when smog levels are high.

The day The Fresno Bee published the story, officials high in Gov. Davis'. chain of command backed away from the suggestion, and it hasn't been mentioned since.

In fall 2001, a more sustained picture of lobbyist work unfolded when farmers fought a new rule to curb dust in the Valley.

Documents confirmed a lobbyist's contact with a key EPA official just before an agricultural exemption was allowed in the new rule. It was a last-minute move that clearly irritated some members of the Valley air district board.

The district board is charged with the authority to pass such rules. But EPA can reject the rules if federal guidelines are not closely followed.

Knowing federal officials hold power over the final approval, lobbyists from many industries -- construction, manufacturing, farming and others -- will contact EPA to present their concerns.

In the case of the dust rule, farm lobbyists were worried about the Valley air district's approach.

Farmers feared the rule would unreasonably require paperwork, new equipment and new employees. Without changes in the rule, farmers said, the cost for agriculture could climb more than $500 million.

But the air district's estimate was closer to $1.3 million. Many farmers would not be affected, district officials said.

Farm lobbyists complained to a state official, Assembly Member Dean Florez, who called a public meeting. But the meeting had little effect on the district's proposed rule.

Farmers then asked to meet with EPA's regional officials to hammer out a compromise on the rule. With EPA in agreement, they probably would have no problem selling the compromise to the Valley air board.

Environmental and health advocates learned of the meeting and asked to be included. EPA expanded the meeting so the other interest groups could present testimony.

Farm officials were dissatisfied, so they began working behind the scenes higher up the federal pecking order, contacting Sen. Dianne Feinstein's staff.

Feinstein's staff e-mailed the regional EPA office, raising the farmers' concerns and attaching a letter to EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman.

"We understand that the air quality issues in the San Joaquin Valley must be addressed, however, the methods proposed by EPA staff may well plunge the agricultural industry in the San Joaquin Valley into further depression without improving the air," the letter concludes.

EPA regional officials confirm they spoke with Feinstein's staff about farm concerns two weeks before the Valley air board voted on the dust rule, but claim the conversation changed nothing.

(The Fresno Bee)

"Our concern was that they would try to pressure us," says Andrew Steckle, chief of EPA's rule-making office in San Francisco. "But it didn't happen."

Just before the Valley board's vote in mid-November 2001, the farmers and EPA reached a compromise, allowing an exemption for some ag equipment as well as other tweaks.

EPA would not elaborate on how the compromise was reached. But a fax obtained by The Bee through the Freedom of Information Act showed lobbyist Cunha communicated directly with EPA Regional Director Jack Broadbent just two days before the Valley air district vote.

The message simply contained a legal definition of on-field farm equipment such as harvesters: "Implements of husbandry: Any new or used vehicle used exclusively in the conduct of agricultural operations as described in Chapter 1 of Division 16 of the California Vehicle Code."

Cunha explains EPA requested the fax from him as background. He says the issue had been discussed for many months in workshops, and he and EPA did nothing improper, he says:

"It was not anything that was done at the last minute. To me, it was just part of an ongoing conversation."

Two days later, "implements of husbandry" were exempted from the dust rule. Tractors and harvesters could move on unpaved roads between fields without being subject to the regulation.

"Another backroom deal," says lawyer Newell of the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment.

EPA officials are aware of how the last-minute negotiation looked.

"Could it have been done better?" asks Broadbent. "I'd be the first one to say yes. I've met with farmers, environmentalists and the board to assure them that EPA is committed to working with them."

After the meeting in November, however, several Valley air board members said the farmers made an end-run around local authority. Board members say they had little choice but to accept the compromise because they had run out of time.

Click to view larger image from the interactive gallery.

The Valley already had been assessed a federal sanction -- increased costs for new or expanding businesses in the Valley -- for missing an October deadline on the rule. Board members didn't want to risk further sanctions.

By approving the rule, they started the process of lifting the federal sanction, which EPA eliminated a few months later.

But board member Barbara Patrick, a Kern County supervisor, says, "Some kind of deal was cut. We can't have that."

Adds veteran board member Bill Sanders, a Tulare County supervisor: "I've never seen anything like that. What does that mean next time?"

Regulation on the way?

A lot of people are working on information that should help the next time.

Research on dairy gases this year will add grist to two other landmark studies costing $50 million. The two studies -- one on smog and one on particle pollution -- are expected to begin producing results in the next few years.

Just over the Tehachapi mountains, farm regulation may also begin soon, but it won't be a political battle. Officials in the Los Angeles-area South Coast Air Quality Management District say their air basin is largely urban with 15.5 million residents. People are not reluctant to regulate the farm industry or any others.

"We used to argue over the goal of cleaning up the air," says executive officer Barry Wallerstein of South Coast. "We all recognize it harms public health."

In the Valley, it's a different story politically. Some on the Valley air district governing board feel strongly about protecting agriculture.

Board member Tony Barba of Kings County says, "If you eliminate jobs, how will the poor survive? How about the people who don't have any lung problems and who are just trying to earn money?"

But many experts believe agriculture does not have the same clout it did three decades ago. The handwriting is on the wall, says Bryan Jenkins, a biological and agricultural engineer at the University of California at Davis.

"It's a question of how much the state wants to subsidize restrictions," he says. "You can place restrictions, but how does agriculture meet them?"