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Monica Vaughan
Reporter
I am a freelance investigative reporter based in Fresno, where I focus on community engagement and watchdog journalism. I've reported on rural communities in California for nearly a decade as a local newspaper reporter. I covered water for Fresnoland at The Fresno Bee, county government for The Tribune in San Luis Obispo and criminal justice for the Appeal-Democrat in the Sacramento Valley. While at The Tribune, I investigated the link between air pollution and a State Park as a Center for Health Journalism California Fellow. Last year, my team won first place for Public Service Journalism from the California News Publishers Association and the George F. Gruner Award for public service for a series of stories about contaminated drinking water. I went to school in Oregon, earning a master's degree in communication and society from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and an undergraduate degree in media studies from Southern Oregon University.
Articles
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State and local government agencies give away millions of dollars in incentive funding to companies and individuals each year, often with little transparency or public scrutiny.
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Nearly two decades of postponing a ban on burning have left clean air advocates dubious that local air regulators will follow through.
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%20(1)695d.jpg?itok=Ybl3BHTL "Norma Vargas uses multiple medications to manage her severe asthma, which she developed while growing up in a San Joaquin Valley ag town with poor air quality.")
Long-term exposure to the particulate matter released by open agricultural burning has been associated with a suite of health problems, and the communities most affected are majority-Latino.
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%20(1)_0b144.jpg?itok=IVc_nJzm "Regulators promote chipping or grinding agricultural debris like branches and whole trees using heavy equipment as the primary alternative to agricultural burning in the Valley.")
In their new plan to ban agricultural burning, air regulators are using outreach and financial incentives to convince growers to adopt an alternative known as whole orchard recycling.
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%20(1)d354.jpg?itok=nZclXcAt "Dennis Hutson, who farms 60 acres in Allensworth, is one of many small farmers who worry they won’t be able to afford alternatives to ag burning.")
Even with $220 million in financial incentives, growers are wondering how they’ll afford whole orchard recycling in the long term – especially small farmers, who have fewer resources to begin with.
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b756.jpg?itok=kKbTHHPa "A political fight in the Sacramento legislature resulted in a loophole that allowed ag burning to continue.")
A California senator set out to ban agricultural burning in the San Joaquin Valley nearly 20 years ago. What happened?
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a5a0.jpg?itok=onZi94kb "The San Joaquin Valley is the only region in the country to be out of compliance with 1997 federal air quality standards.")
Clean air advocates hope the EPA will step in to strengthen regulations of polluting industries.
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If you live on the south side of Fresno, you are likely exposed to multiple sources of air pollution that can harm your health — and the hot summer days can increase the risk.
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The new hazardous waste site is located in a ZIP code that already is the most polluted in the state.
Topics
This project is supported by a grant from USC Annenberg’s Center for Health Journalism 2022 California Impact Fund.