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State commission looking into the origin of dust on the Nipomo Mesa

December 8, 2021

By CCN STAFF

At a special meeting on Thursday, a scientist with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography will explain her investigation and findings into the origin and composition of airborne particulate matter (PM10) collected on the Nipomo Mesa.

Since 2007, the San Luis Obispo County Air Pollution Control District (APCD) has consistently maintained that high PM10 concentrations detected during high wind days on the Nipomo Mesa were comprised of windblown mineral dust from the Oceano Dunes.

However, the APCD did not test the PM10 for mineral dust until 2020, after Scripps had done so, according to the commission’s website. That APCD data has not been made public.

In her report, atmospheric chemist Dr. Lynn Russell discovered that during the windiest days of the year, when the winds are blowing from the west and PM10 readings on the Nipomo Mesa are high, the amount of mineral dust in the PM10 is on average 14% and not the 100% the APCD claims.

“The primary purpose of this investigation, which is part of a larger three-year study, is to quantify that portion of measured PM that consists of mineral dust,” Russell says in her report. “Mineral dust is generated from the windblown sand dune building process called saltation, and so quantifying the mineral dust portion of PM at the (APCD air quality monitoring station on the Nipomo Mesa) provides a conservative measure of that portion of PM on the Mesa that could possibly be from the Oceano Dunes State Vehicle Recreation Area (SVRA). The mineral dust measure is conservative because saltation occurs in the dunes inside and outside the SVRA, and mineral dust is also derived from agricultural operations and vehicles driving on dirt roads—activities that occur in the region that lies between the SVRA and the Mesa.”

Though the APCD’s 2020 testing for mineral dust in PM10 has not been made public, Russell was able to review the analytical results from that testing. Russell found APCD’s 2020 testing supported the findings of her investigation.

Watch the commission meeting at 9 a.m on Thursday at Cal-Span. Find information on how to participate here.


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It has been common knowledge that you will never go hungry down wind of the dunes because you can eat all of the sandwiches there. ho ho ho, Have a meeting and make that Xmas money.


1

Does wind pick up particles of sand and dust from the dunes? of coarse it does. Does destroying the vegetation on the dunes allow more dust and sand to blow up and onto the Mesa? of course it does.


-30

The dunes are four miles away from the mesa, while there are dirt roads and farms near the mesa. Also, the Oceano dunes historically did not have much plant material.


23

You have been fed so much APCD propaganda for so long. It is only natural you’d parrot the APCD’s false narrative. Lest you forget: The APCD said there was silica in the PM10. That seemed to make a certain sense to the layperson. Except it was not true. The APCD never tested the PM for silica. Parks did and found the APCD’s claim was false.


https://calcoastnews.com/2020/06/the-regulators-who-cried-wolf/


24

By definition…sand dunes have little vegetation…this is why and how the wind is able to create dunes in the first place….I grantee that if we eliminated all vehicles on the sand…sand dust would still blow through town and the vegetation rate would be the same as it is now….


6

Wind, sand, = dust particles in the air? Who would have thought? The earth and the natural actions of how it was designed. How many millions have multiple levels of government wasted on this, all to shut a recreation area environmentalist hate? What a joke. And who who’s paying for the cost of the insanity? The hard-working taxpayer.


31

Has any of these investigators done a forensic composition analysis of the sand and mineral dust particles in the centuries old soil strata on the Nipomo Mesa? Dig a trench 4 to 8 feet deep somewhere near Monarch Dunes or Cypress Ridge or wherever and examine the type, nature, and composition of deposited sand & dust particles in the soil strata beneath the surface. If there are similarities in sand dust deposition 100, 500, or 1000 years ago as to what we see today, then it is apparent that motorized vehicle use has negligible influence on dust migration. Perhaps Mother Nature is just doing her normal thing at the Oceano Dunes, same as she always has for millennia.


21

Someone on any one of the expert research boards, just has to realize that the Nipomo mesa is a………..sand dune? You don’t need a million dollar research study to know this simple fact.


Sure, you can ask how it got there, and the very obvious answer is: Particulate matter was blown in from the west.


There. Now let’s all go home and leave the dunes for the people to enjoy.


25

Uh … sand … and, uh, wind? Pay me the $$$???


13

Another waste of taxpayer money on a useless government program


20

I’ll save the time and money. Dirt washes down waterways into the ocean. Then it washes ashore where the wind blows it inland.

Where’s my nobel prize for science please?


34

Me first


1

What are they looking into about the sand?…that it breaks down naturally into sand dust?…I can save them a bunch of time…grains of sand turn to dust and the winds pick it up….this takes place on the sandspits of Morro Bay…anyone living in the line of fire in Morro Bay knows this…and there are no cars and trucks on the sand spits….there…no need to waste the time and money…..


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