‘Here First’ Argument No Longer Justifies Smoke-Caused Suffering

As I witness what would have been a brilliant sunset in a bright blue sky but is instead a dull orange sun descending from an acrid pall that stings with each breath, I am reminded of a few lowlights from the past several days.

My respiratory medicine practice is busy these days, as my partner and I notice a sharp upturn in business has brought a sudden end to the usual summer lull. I have cared for two patients in one week with immediately life-threatening respiratory emergencies. Their increasing symptoms over recent weeks are quite coincidental with their atmospheric smoke exposure, without adequate alternative explanation.

The latter of these occurred at 3:30 one morning. My rapid trip to the hospital ended in the intensive care unit, where I found my patient struggling for each breath and wondering if the next one would come.

To survey the business in emergency rooms or even in our office on particularly smoky days is a far too simplistic gauge of the health effects of this pollution. Quantification of these effects is difficult because most of our patients have underlying respiratory conditions and the causes of their worsened symptoms are often multiple, including atmospheric smoke exposure. This leads to a situation where worsened breathing may occur for weeks after an acute exposure.

I’m also left to try to explain this practice to my visiting mother, another in a long string of incredulous outsiders who aren’t blessed with the “enlightenment” that comes with repetition of such exposures.

We are told that grass farmers were “here first” and that this justifies the environmental degradation and illness.

Here first applies also to those who released radiation from Hanford, to those who dumped mine tailings in rivers and to those whose destructive logging practices have given way to more environmentally sensitive methods. Each of these practices has left us with regrettable legacies.

Here first also describes many of my patients, long-term residents who have suffered many such seasons but whose political weakness in comparison with that of agricultural interests has left them only the options of sealing themselves in their homes, fleeing the area, and/ or suffering illness. The woman to whose bedside I rushed early one recent morning moved here in 1941.

I recognize that a solution to this problem will not be simple and that some compensation of loss for the grass growers may be appropriate. Nonetheless, the time for agricultural field burning in populated areas, like that of the other practices mentioned above, is past.

I am no longer able to remain on the political sidelines and simply deal with the adverse effects of field burning. For my patients, for my friends, for my family and for myself, I now assume the rank of activist.

Now, where did I leave the phone number for the Clear Air Coalition?

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