This is the third in a series of 30 minute videos of the Phase 2 Study workshop at the South County Regional Center on March 3, 2010.

The findings of the Phase 2 Study are clearly presented in this video. The study found that activities at the ODSVRA are responsible for the airborne carcinogenic silica that is health threatening downwind.

The previous episodes of "Danger Downwind" have shown:

(1) State Park's Off Highway Vehicle Division (OHV) is fighting the Phase 2 Study. It withdrew its support (letter to APCD), testified it did not accept the findings (APCD and SLOBOS recorded meetings), and attempted to do its own study (Coastal Commission staff report and recorded meeting).

(2) The APCD Board is composed of political representatives, some of whom represent cities (Pismo Beach and Grover Beach) that support OHV activities (websites, national advertising, letters to the San Luis Obispo Board of Supervisors (SLO BOS)), and oppose the Phase 2 Study for alleged economic benefit (letters to APCD requesting that the study not be accepted, video and minutes of meetings).

(3) The SLO BOS denies its responsibility to enact a moratorium on off road activities, most of which occur on county owned land (OHV's coastal development permit authorizing and encouraging the county take such action to protect public health). The SLOBOS further fails to follow the recommendation of its own Health Commission to act immediately to protect public health. In addition, it is working with OHV and the APCD Board (on which each of its members serve) to try to justify its inaction by conducting a so called "mitigation" pilot study (the "ideas" and their rationale, e.g. "straw bales", and "planting" can be seen at slocleanair.org). Aside from the impracticability of implementing these two "ideas" on the scale that would be required, the pilot study is an unnecessary replication of previous research (the literature and common experience show that obstacles can (until they are covered over) slow down the wind in isolated situations, and the APCD Phase 2 Study which already showed the effects of vegetation). The third "idea" being tested was already examined thoroughly in the Phase 2 Study, that is, whether off road activities increase the air pollution.

More than a year has passed since the findings of the Phase 2 Study were presented to the public, yet the health threatening air pollution continues unabated.

Not addressed in this video (but in previous segments of this meeting) is the additional finding that the monitor near Pier Avenue showed concentrations of particulate matter that surpassed health standards 48 days a year. The traffic leaving the ODSVRA onto Pier Avenue still entrains clouds of toxic dust that blow into homes causing people to be hospitalized and to have to leave the area in order to breathe.