8 Jul 2021 Jahr - 2021: Summary: Faulty smoke monitoring and "averaging" allows industry to evade EPA air quality compliance

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Summary: Glades County residents are suing sugar companies in federal court, alleging that pollution from cane burning damages residents’ health.The industry denies those claims, arguing that a government-run air monitor showed the area is in compliance with the 1970 Federal Clean Air Act.

But state officials found that the monitor was malfunctioning. In 2013, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection notified their federal counterparts that the monitor didn’t meet accuracy standards and could not determine whether the air quality meets the requirements outlined in the federal law.

An investigation by The Palm Beach Post and ProPublica found that the state and federal framework for measuring air quality fails to capture the impact of sugar cane burning, even with an accurate monitor in place. Federal regulators use 24-hour and annual averages to track a type of particulate matter that is emitted by cane burning. These averages sometimes obscure hazardous short-term peaks of pollution that result from the short-term burns. Averaging these emissions out over days or years conceals the intensity of the particulates and toxins in the smoke.

===excerpt from ProPublica: Article and interactive map. The Smoke Comes Every Year.
Sugar Companies Say the Air Is Safe. by Lulu Ramadan, The Palm Beach Post, and Ash Ngu and Maya Miller, ProPublica. July 8, 2021

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