Air pollution comes from many sources: industry, farms, trucks and more. But some say rapid urban growth is the new bad boy of smog and one of the last unregulated polluters. The Bakersfield Californian examines sprawl's impact on Kern's dirty air in this special report.

Breathing uneasy: Residents want solutions -- now

Posted: Saturday June 14, 2003, 11:59:00 PM
Last updated: Saturday June 14, 2003, 09:21:13 PM

Henry A. Barrios / The Californian Four-year-old Riley Barklow uses an inhaler for asthma on a daily basis. His mother, Kelsey, says air quality in Bakersfield aggravates Riley’s asthma. The Barklows will be moving this summer because Kelsey’s husband, Tom, is due to begin his medical residency in Iowa. At left is Riley’s friend Dillon Sylvester.

At a recent gathering of the Moms' Network of Kern County, an informal poll revealed that all 16 moms in attendance drove to the event. Two carpooled, and two more said they could have walked but didn't.

The group met at Windsor Park in the upscale Seven Oaks subdivision in southwest Bakersfield. The occasion was a farewell potluck for six families moving out of Bakersfield. In every case, the moves are the result of a job change. But also in every case, Bakersfield's horrible air quality was the second issue to roll off their lips.

"It's a big concern to me, because my son has asthma," said southwest Bakersfield homeowner Kelsey Barklow, who is moving to Iowa so her husband, Tom, can begin his hospital residency as a physician. Four-year-old Riley developed asthma soon after the family moved to Bakersfield 18 months ago. "He coughs a lot, and in the summer it's really bad. If we weren't moving for the job, we'd probably leave anyway. I just had a new baby and I don't want her to get it too."

Many of Kern's public officials don't believe there is a link between sprawl and air pollution. They also say people won't buy a home within walking distance of a store, and that Bakersfield neighborhoods look the way they do because that's what people want.

Many Bakersfield residents don't agree with these assumptions, including some of the gathered moms.

Bakersfield is growing too fast, they believe, and sprawling onto surrounding farmland excessively. They understand this means more traffic and more air pollution. Some said they have to drive for short errands more than they'd like.

"That's one of the things I liked about Bakersfield as opposed to other areas: It wasn't so big and spread out. But it will be," said Seven Oaks homeowner Lilly Vaughn, who has three children. "Traffic is bad here now. Here, you can't be without a car, even to take your kids to school."

Others agreed.

"It's overpopulated now in Rosedale," said southwest Bakersfield resident Elizabeth Howard, a mother of two. "It's just getting overpopulated and big. It used to be a nice, quiet place and now it's not quiet anymore."

No one walked to the potluck, in part, because like so many other new neighborhoods, Seven Oaks is surrounded by high cement walls punctuated only rarely by streets allowing entry and exit. Most streets do not connect to streets beyond the neighborhood, but loop back on themselves or end in cul-de-sacs.

Walls and looping streets that fold in on themselves rather than connect to outside streets force pedestrians and bicyclists to cover long distances before they can enter or leave a neighborhood. The walls also produce a bland streetscape and reflect summer's withering heat, further turning pedestrians away. This differs from the grid-patterned neighborhoods of 50 years ago, where residential streets empty onto arterials bordered by homes and businesses.

Also like all new Bakersfield neighborhoods, Seven Oaks includes no commercial development. There are no stores, cafes or offices near homes, either inside or outside the walls. Except for an elementary school and parks, Seven Oaks is an unbroken landscape of tract homes.

"A lot of people don't want a convenience store in their neighborhood. Frankly, I do," said Jane Hutchinson, also a Seven Oaks homeowner and mother of two. "I would definitely walk if I could get to a 7-Eleven for milk or whatever. Frankly, I would love that and I would walk with my kids."

There's plenty of evidence people buy homes in neighborhoods like Seven Oaks because they have few alternatives. Many older pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods have fallen into decay because cities spend their time and money on new areas rather than maintaining what they have. This creates the perception that older areas are unsafe or less desirable. Reinvesting in older neighborhoods, and building new neighborhoods in the old way, could change this perception.

"I think it depends a lot on the type of business they allow in and how it's run," said Vaughn. "When I grew up in New York there were stores everywhere and you didn't have people worried about blight. We would walk everywhere and only get in the car, like, once every two weeks."

Even for those who approve of how Bakersfield has grown, the air has become a problem. Tracy Cazares and her family are moving to Bear Valley Springs because Bakersfield is "getting real busy and built up." Husband Ernie will now commute to Bakersfield to run the family business, Sparkle Steam Carpet Cleaning.

"When we built our house four or five years ago, there was nothing but cows and fields. I think the progress is great. The homes they're building are great. Development is not a bad thing," Cazares said. However, she added, "It got to the point where we would go on vacation and we would come back and look at the sky and say 'Oh my gosh, is this really what it's like?'"

Others recognize the link between sprawl and pollution, but fear it is too huge to solve. Maryann Wise and her family are moving from Bakersfield to Texas because of a job change -- reluctantly, she emphasized, because they love the community. She said many people are able to overlook the area's smoggy air, but her family never could. They previously lived in Ojai, and on visits since then, they couldn't help noticing the smog during the trip home.

"I don't like seeing what I see when I come over the hill. It just kind of depressed the kids to come down into this, and it depressed me," Wise said. "It's amazing how fast things are growing here. I don't know what we can do about it, because everyone's driving SUVs and driving up to the drive-up window and burning wood in their fireplaces. It's the big picture."

For those who have lived in the area longer, the changes of the past 10 to 20 years have been especially jarring. Kern County native Wendy Kaess, for instance, believes the area has grown so fast that local officials haven't been able to plan for it properly. As a child growing up in Taft, she enjoyed riding her bike to the neighborhood convenience store. Now her two daughters don't have that opportunity in their own neighborhood.

"My house sits where there used to be a cornfield when we would drive from Taft to Bakersfield on Sundays for shopping trips," said Kaess. "Just like anyone else who's lived here for any length of time, I've noticed the air quality deteriorating. I remember when you could see the hills all the time, not just when it rained. It used to be pretty. I don't know what happened."