The Sacramento area defined for the purpose of this presentation, as the Sacramento Valley. This is an area with an abundance of agriculture and rice growing is a large part of it.

Agricultural land use, specifically rice fields, makeup more than 90% of California’s rice producing acreage (Hill). . Since the introduction of commercial rice production in 1912 (Hill), the counties of Colusa, Butte, Sutter and Glenn have been leading the way in production; these fields have been used for generations by rice farmers, making them a landmark of the Sacramento Valley.

Technology has influenced the traditional rice farmer by introducing better fertilization techniques and genetically altered plants that are more disease resistant. Although technology has made an inroad into the rice growing community, older methods are still employed because newer methods are not available or they are to expensive to implement. One of these methods used in the production of rice is the open burning of fields; the stubble from the old rice stalks must be removed before a new planting can begin. The use of open field burning as a method of eliminating rice stubble has been used for years.

The Sacramento Valley in recent years has become more aware of pollution problems created by all types of events. About once a year, usually in the fall such an event takes place in the Sacramento Valley. This event known to the locals as the, "rice field burnings " has been the blessing of the farmers and the curse of the populace. The effects of the burning can last almost a week, and the irritating smoke can fill the whole valley, sometimes it almost seems the whole place is on fire.

This presentation will investigate the health risks to people living in the Sacramento Valley during the time the rice fields are being burned. This presentation will attempt to answer questions such as: Can respiratory problems be linked to rice field burning? How serious are these effects? How great an area is affected by the rice field burning?

Because of the amount of rice acreage planted in the Sacramento Valley, approximately 515,000, there is a large amount of rice stubble left in the fields about three tons per acre (HRYNCHUK). The stubble is normally burned off through a method called open field burning.

The biggest problem with the open field burning of rice straw is the emissions of smoke and other pollutants into the atmosphere and their effects on ambient air quality, visibility, and public health (HRYNCHUK). These problems are especially noticeable during the peak intensive fall burning period, from September to the end of November.

Prior to 1971 agricultural burning in the Sacramento Valley went from being unregulated to being managed by sophisticated smoke management programs.

In 1983 the Sacramento Valley Basinwide AirPollution Control Council was required to develop a Sacramento Valley Agricultural Burning Plan, the burn plan (HRYNCHUK). Then in 1991 the "Connelly-Areias-Chandler Rice Straw Burning Reduction Act of 1991" was created. This act requires that the Air Resources Board and the California Department of Food and Agriculture to prepare biennial reports know as the "Phase Down Report to the Legislature".

In order to investigate the stated problem a method for investigation will be employed that uses a modified concept of the scientific method. The main difference will be the elimination of the experimental part of the investigative process. The steps listed below will give a general outline of the methodology and the relationship to the scientific method.

Observable data that reflects the effects of burning rice field stubble will be collected from existing sources, both public and private. These sources will include but are not limited to aerial photographs, satellite images, tabular data from environmental sources, tabular data from medical resources, and field study data if available. If existing data is not reliable or not available, new data will have to be acquired.

Once data has been collected the analysis process will take place. The methods employed in the analysis of this data will be in two parts. First, the reliability, precision, and accuracy of the data must be established, and the data must also be capable of being overlaid in a spatial environment, a GIS. Data that cannot be aligned with other data under this specification will have to be discarded or acquired.

The second part of the analysis is the investigation of the data in relationship to features and attributes within it’s combined superset. The type of data analysis that will be the starting point of the analysis will be to simply let the data set speak for itself with as little intervention as possible on the part of the GIS analyst. Once the data are viewed in this manner further queries can be made about the relationships.

As queries are built and results are viewed, analysis of the data can be output as a map, chart, or table; the results of this output can be used to answer the stated problem

Obtaining existing data for use in analysis of the stated problem has been difficult and the acquisition of data that is directly related to the subject matter, that is health statistics, is not available from any source that I have investigated.

In the course of my investigation I have conducted telephone interviews with every Federal, State, County agency I could find. Health data is non-existent for agricultural related health data with two exceptions.

The first exception is contained in a report by the Sacramento Bee written by Tom Harris in 1989; the story as it appeared in the Sacramento Bee under the headline "Experts Fear Airborne Silica Particles Cause Cancer" seemed to be a real break in health data. Unfortunately after talking to the Air Resources Board and the California Rice Industry I was lead to believe that the data was skewed and unreliable, because of time constraints I will not investigate this data again but look for a more recent source.

The second exception comes from the California Rice Industry. Studies of the farmers who work in the fields during the burning times were given health assessments. After talking with someone in the Ergonomics Department at U.C. Davis and to a representative of California Rice Industry I was told that this report was inconclusive. I asked for the data anyway; I was told if it could be found it would be sent to me. This never occurred.

I made telephone interviews with the following government agencies: Center for Disease Control, the Air Resource Board, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Sacramento County Department of Agriculture. I also made telephone interviews with the following hospitals: Kaiser, Sutter Memorial, and U.C. Davis Medical Center. Not one of these resources could find any data that would deal directly or indirectly with health related issues concerning rice field burning.

I was able to obtain a hardcopy report "Progress Report on the Phase Down of Rice Straw Burning in the Sacramento Valley Air Basin 1995-1996". Even in this report a reference is made to the inadequate data that is associated with health issues about Rice Straw Burning. The report mentions the fact that the ARB will be conducting a three year project to study the "Health Impacts of Smoke from Rice Residues and Other Vegetative Burning"; The study is just now been funded and will start sometime this year.

The data that I have been able to obtain is poorly designed and will take a lot of work to create useful spatial and data relationships to analyze. For example, I obtained a database from the County Department of Agriculture that was created in FoxPro; this database is used to track the number of acres burned on a given date. Burn zones that are very large areas spatially locate the data. The areas could be broken down into permit numbers that are available also in the database, but the permit numbers are tied to the Department of pesticides where the permit numbers are hard coded onto a paper database. Further complications arise when matching permit numbers to land areas because this information is contained in another paper database too.

Data that are concerned with complaints from the public about air quality are available, but the information is contained in a paper log and the extraction of the data is complicated by privacy issues and staff time to compile the data in a legally distributable format.

The approach to investigating the issue of the effects of rice field burning on health without a reliable existing data set can not be performed at this time.

The conclusion that can be drawn from the preceding information is that not enough data exists to be used in an analysis of the stated problem; however, the issue can be addressed by formulating an investigative process that will create the data and then an analysis can be performed, addressing the issue. The following paragraphs will attempt to outline a general plan to investigate the issue.

One of the biggest hurdles that will have to be crossed is the creation of data that addresses health. Several resources for everyday health data can be found in all areas of the Sacramento Valley. For example, schools generally have nurses on campus during school hours. A system of data collection that would tailor itself to the report of respiratory problems reported by students could be implemented at a district level. Confidentiality need not be a concern because the data needed is not personal in nature. The attributes that are needed are concerned with location, time, severity, and symptoms. With the cooperation of a school district, a large data set can be created and incorporated with data such as burn days to be used to make an analysis.

Another health related resource is hospitals The issue here is not just one of cooperation but confidentiality. Since it is important to have location data, the patient’s address will be needed along with attributes that describe the medical condition. It would not be difficult to distribute a data set with only a minimum of the patient’s information; patients are usually cooperative when they know the information they are giving is going to benefit them.

The most difficult, time consuming and expensive part of the data set would be a field study. The field study can be divided into two parts; an initial mailing of a paper based interview or questioner to residents in selected areas, then a follow up personal interview of respondents to the questioner. Secondly a random directed search consisting of door to door personal interviews of residents in selected areas during scheduled burning times.

Once the health data has been gathered, the basemap, which might be a parcel map, overlaid with roads and landmarks can be generated. This basemap then can have layers of health, air quality, burn zones and their attributes, and parcel owner’s information, associated with it. Through well designed queries an analysis of the data can be performed which may produce enough information to answer or least create more questions about the effects on health from rice field burning.

HILL, J.E.,ROBERTS S.R.,BRANDON D.M.,SCARDACI S.C.,WILLIAMS J.F., WICK C.M., CANEVARI W.M., WEIR B.L. 1992 Rice Production in California. University California, Publication 21498

HRYNCHUK L. 1997 Progress Report On the Phase Down of Rice Straw Burning in the Sacramento Valley Air Basin California Air Resources Board, 1997 Phase Down Report to the Legislature