Wildfires burned more than 429,000 acres of land in California’s Sonoma County in 2020. The LNU Lightning Complex and the Glass Fire destroyed 1,500 structures and burned numerous grape vineyards.
A new study found during those fires, the county’s government prioritized the county’s wine industry profits over the lives of the people working those fields.
Researchers from the University of California – Irvine and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, recently published a study in the GeoHealth scientific journal that focused on the safety protections for farmworkers and the effectiveness of air monitoring in Sonoma County. The study found that farmworkers were exposed to high pollution levels from nearby wildfires while being excluded from mandated evacuation zones.
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“Wildfires prompted Sonoma County’s businesses and government to prioritize the wine industry by advocating for initiatives that may put farmworkers’ lives at risk,” the researchers found.
Those initiatives included the adoption of an Agricultural Pass program, which allows farm bosses to apply for permits which allowed farmworkers to keep harvesting crops in mandatory evacuation zones during wildfires.
The study found 96 Agricultural Pass program applications were submitted during the Glass Fire, including 120 worksites and 633 workers. Another 370 permits were submitted during the LNU Lightning Complex yielded 370 permits and included 590 worksites and 1,603 workers. Researchers also said the exact number of workers for each permit is unreliable because of mismatches between permits and the absence of worker counts on some permits.
“Given the program’s lack of oversight, inconsistencies with state-level emergency protocols, and insufficient monitoring of hazardous air quality in the impacted regions, there is a need to further analyze the risks, health impacts, and structural inequalities the program imposes on farmworkers, in particular those who are undocumented,” the study said.
The researchers suggested a variety of policy changes in regards to their findings, including:
- Mandatory Employer Emergency Plans and Emergency Training
- Clear Protocols on Identifying Workers and Locations
- Real-Time Monitoring of Air Quality
- Hazard Pay
- Post-Exposure Health Screenings
- Post-Incident Accountability and Data Accuracy
Another study conducted in late 2023 found wildfire smoke could be much more toxic than officials previously believed.
Researchers from Stanford University studied soil from the LNU Complex and the 2019 Kincade Fire, finding wildfires can create cancer-causing toxic heavy metals depending on where they burn and the severity of the flames. At the burn scars, the team measured the levels of chromium 6, which is known by most as the toxic chemical from the 2000 film Erin Brockovich, and they found dangerous levels of it in certain areas of the fire.
“Up until now, for wildfires at least, we’ve worried a lot about the fine particulate exposure … what we’ve been blind to is that those ultra-fine particles can differ in composition,” researcher Scott Fendorf previously told WildfireToday. “Even in wildfires that are completely removed from any dwellings, with certain geologies and certain vegetation types which are pretty common, we can see that the particles have these toxic metals in them.”
READ MORE: Wildfire smoke toxicity worsened by heavy metals in soil, flame intensity
