Hello. Welcome to all things air. My name is Kieran Sheth, and I'm a science communication and environmental justice intern for the US Forest Service. In this podcast, we dive into air quality, air control, and basically all things air.

From talking to different specialists in the air program to researchers, this is your outlet for the world around you. In our fourth podcast episode, I'm talking to Janice Petersen, an air resource specialist with the USDA Forest Service who is retiring after many years in the air program.

You know, let's just jump right in. So, what is one of the biggest takeaways that you have had, as your time working for the AIR program and, you know, as a researcher?

Well, I I oh, boy. I guess the biggest takeaway is just, you know, the value of public lands and the interrelationship between, you know, the work that we do to protect public lands and the value of those lands to the public.

I mean, I've spent most of my career dealing with, you know, aspects of air quality protection and just protecting, you know, forest service lands from air pollution. And the converse of that is, you know, looking for ways to make sure that the activities that we're doing on public lands are not impacting public air quality unnecessarily, you know, or to a degree that, is gonna, you know, harm the public.

Definitely. And would you say that in your objective of, you know, protecting public lands, it involves a lot of public engagement also in that sense?

Yeah. I think that's really key is, you know, working closely with partners. It's always an area of emphasis that I've placed during my career is, you know, working with other other, public land managers, but also, you know, air quality partners and, you know, that sort of thing.

And looking for ways to do outreach to inform the public of what's going on, whether it's through official channels like NEPA documents or, you know, unofficial briefing papers.

Another project that we've done in the northwest here that I'm really proud of is we've got a Washington smoke blog.

So I've been working for the last ten years or so with a group of cooperators.

And during smoke emergencies, we try to get the word out to the public of what's going on, where are the wildfires, how bad is the smoke, how long is the smoke gonna impact public in Washington in particular, and what kind of actions can they take to protect their health.

And that's not something that the poor service can do by itself, obviously, so so that's why it's really important to have, you know, those public health partners. And, you know, locally, it's Department of Ecology who does air quality regulation.

They have a big role to play. We also work with the tribes and work with the local health districts and, National Weather Service. So it takes takes a big team to put it all together.

Yeah. I bet. And, you know, what do you think is, what do you think has been the most effective method that you've seen in your time as a researcher in in connecting with the public? You know, what do you think they respond to the most or how you get them engaged?

Well, it it kind of looks it kind of you know, one of the most important, things is to find find the right the right shoehorn, basically, the right excuse when they're gonna be paying attention.

And this example that I have, you know, during wildfire smoke episodes, you know, that's really a time when the public is is looking for information. Right? They're looking, you know, for for some help to understand what's going on, to, you know, put it in context, to figure out how to protect their families. So, you know, that's kind of that really provides us a super good opportunity to get the message out because the the audience is really receptive at that point in time.

You know, other than that, it takes, you know, it takes a lot of work. Although I'm in air quality, you know, another really great in house partnership is with the public information folks that work for the forest service. You know, they spend their careers figuring out how to outreach to the pup to their local publics and, you know, get messages across whether from, you know, flyers or brochures or door hangers if they're doing some prescribed burning or or whatever, you know, public meetings. Mhmm.

But, again, it's it can be really hard to reach the public on issues that you wanna talk about if it's not something that's really raised up in their consciousness as something that they wanna care about at that moment in time.

You know for sure. And where do you think air quality is today versus when you started, your role, as a researcher and everything else like that?

Well, when I first started this career, a lot of, well, actually, if you go way back, the the very first step in my career was in research for, and I've we studied, you know, prescribed fire and smoke and emission factors from, you know, from different kinds of fire and how to predict that.

But then when I first took the current job I have as an air resource specialist, in the agency with the National Forest Systems, it was really all about, you know, what are the effects of air pollution on public lands? So, you know, lake acidification or ozone damage or visibility impairment and that sort of thing. But over time, by and large, we've seen industrial sources of pollution be reduced, particularly in the west and the and the northwest where I'm located.

So although we've got really sensitive lakes out here, they don't seem to be, like, experience any acidification to amount to anything.

You know, there's not much in the way of ozone in the northwest at this point. At this point.

Visibility seems to be getting better. So by and large, those anthropogenic effects on public lands are really not that significant.

And what became more and more of an issue is the condition of of, you know, our our public lands in terms of, you know, fire dependency Mhmm. And seeing increases in wildfire.

You know, the last ten to fifteen years or so, we've seen just really remarkable increases sound that we're seeing in the landscape. And so smoke became a huge issue.

You know, smoke from wildfires was was, you know, clearly gonna be a huge issue, but also how do we navigate that difficult space of them telling the public, well, we really need to go out and use fire in the forest to better manage forest health, to better, you know, protect communities against wildfire, and, you know, how does that make sense when we're trying not to pollute the air?

You know, so a lot of a lot of my current work has been focused, you know, away from anthropogenic emissions and effects on forest ecosystems and into, you know, how do we use prescribed fire responsibly, How do we explain to the public that, you know, we can manage this source of smoke much better than we can manage smoke from wildfires.

And so, you know, trying trying to make that case to the public, trying to work with, again, our clean air partners so that they understand what we're doing, and they can help make the case to the public also that, you know, prescribed fire is a necessary component of the ecosystem. You know, we're trying to do good good and necessary work, and, you know, ecosystems really, really need fire. There's there's no way to avoid it.

Yep. And for me, especially, like, when I first heard of prescribed fires, I thought that that before I knew anything about the actual importance of it in ecosystems and how it promotes growth and sustainability, I thought that the whole point was very counterintuitive and contradictory because my mindset was, why are they setting fires if they want to help air quality? But I guess what a lot of people don't know is the importance of, you know, truly, like, why researchers and why people do set prescribed fires. And I guess my question is, like, what has been some of the has there been any, like, pushback from people when you tell them, okay. We're setting a fire in this section of a forest. Has there been any pushback by people? And if so, like, how do you deal with that?

Oh, yeah. There's there's quite frequently, there's pushback.

You know, and again so that that's really the point where the education process has to kick in and the work with partners has to kick in.

Mhmm.

And that's been some real progress over the years, actually. You know, you see, agencies like like EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency.

They're now, you know, quite supportive of the use of prescribed fire and have put together some, you know, some changes in their regulations.

There's one that we don't need to go into the details of it, but it's called the exceptional events rule.

Mhmm.

Where, you know, prescribed fire smoke and wildfire smoke is, you know, kind of given a a bit of a a pass at times, and it's not held against states, for their air quality records.

So EPA has been, I think, really trying to to step forward and make it more possible to use prescribed fire.

And I'm seeing changes from states too, from the state our state air quality partners.

Mhmm.

They're kind of cautiously understanding the situation, trying to be more flexible.

Our smoke permitting in Washington is done by DNR, Department of Natural Resources.

And they're really looking for ways where they can get to a yes on any given day, where they can give us the go ahead to do a prescribed fire.

You know, there's still a lot of days when we get a no, though, because, you know, they'd have to look out for public air quality.

Right. Of course.

But they're but they're trying to work with us. They're trying to be supportive and you and I I get the feeling it's not, you know, a statistically valid, you know, assessment, but I get the feeling the public is is getting the message in a lot of our smaller rural communities.

They're seeing the devastation from wildfire. They're seeing, you know, the day after day after and week after week of smoke impacts.

And they're they're understanding that fire's gonna fire's gonna be there. And if we can do it on our terms, that's better for everybody.

So yeah. So I think there's been progress.

Definitely.

And, you know, because you are retiring within the next week, I think that it is only fitting to ask, what are you hopeful or worried about with the future of air quality? I know you've probably seen so much stuff over your time as a air resource specialist, and you participated in so much research. So taking all of that together and seeing where we are right now, what are your thoughts on that?

Well, it's just we're not gonna get ahead of this welfare risk in the short term. You know, ecosystems are changing. The the climate is warming.

The forests, you know, remain unhealthy and vast stretches of them, you know, there's there's just we just can't get ahead of the problem in the short term by using prescribed fire. So there's gonna be, you know, more years of really bad wildfire situations, and, we're gonna have to deal with smoke. It's one of the areas where I've been working more and more in in the last years of my career is the concept of smoke ready communities that, you know, we have to accept that wildfire smoke is is gonna happen and how can we keep people and keep our communities reasonably safe and reasonably healthy even when there are, you know, a few a few days or a few weeks of wildfire smoke expected every year.

Definitely. And based on your experience, what do you think, for you at least I know this may be a very, very tough question to ask, but or answer, but what do you think has been the most impactful experience that you have had that has kind of shaped you as a air resource specialist and a researcher?

There there are a few things I look back on my career and think, wow. That was that was really amazing.

One of them was a negotiation process we did with the Centralia coal fired power plant.

This was kind of in the days when we were still super concerned about, like, visibility impacts. Not that it's not a concern, but we went through two years of a negotiating process with a a local coal fired power plant, you know, really careful negotiations, a a team approach to figuring out how they could clean up, their emissions without unduly impacting their business and, you know, came out with a really great solution at the end. And I think back in the day, I think Bruce Babbitt was the head of Department of Interior. He came out for the rollout.

The Seattle mayor was there, The Tacoma mayor. Wow. I think the the governor was involved. So the rollout of the final solution was really seen as a big success and, you know, a real achievement for everybody who was involved.

So that was a real highlight. The other thing that was a a huge highlight, I think, was this team of us who got together, in twenty twelve to do wildfire smoke emergency response, in Washington.

And that's been a huge success in that we've been able to help the public through these times of wildfire smoke emergencies.

And, also, it's been an amazing opportunity just to work closely with important air quality partners, on an issue that we all we're all moving in the same direction. And so it's been hugely valuable to build those relationships that pay off in so many other forums besides just the, emergency smoke response that we've done.

Right.

That's right. Two real big achievements that come to mind.

Of course. And those both sound like amazing experiences that I think truly shape a person with, you know, their future and their trajectory.

Yeah. And one of my last questions is, based on your experience and your expertise, what do you think is if you had to pick one thing, what do you think is important for one thing for the general public to know about air quality or air research or basically any really thing, about the air program or anything like that that you think everybody should know?

That's kinda a tough one. I guess I guess to keep in mind that, you know, we're we're managing their lands to the best of our ability and trying to protect public land health and productivity and, you know, forest health and grasslands, you know, for the future. And our our small small portion of the puzzle is, you know, protecting lands from air quality and protecting the public from undue effects from air pollution that might come from public lands.

And that they're they're the owners. We're the stewards, but but they're the real owners Mhmm. Of public lands. And so, you know, weigh in. Let us know, you know, how we can best serve them would be my would be my thought.

Definitely. And, basically, my last one is, is there anything else that I haven't asked you that you would like to share with the listeners of this podcast?

The only other thing I might mention is, another really great program within the agency that I've been involved in as an air resource adviser and just the idea that the forest service now and other agencies too are investing in training specialists to go out with fire teams, you know, wildfire suppression teams, and that's that's our role. It's a it's a cool, you know, still fairly new specialty of, an expert that goes out with a wildfire suppression team to talk to the public and talk to firefighters and you know, about the effects of smoke on public health and on safety and on, you know, effects to firefighters.

So that's you know, this air resource advisor program is is somewhat new and it's, and it it's important component of of what we do for the public.

Definitely. Mention that too. Get a little plug in for that one too.

Well, those are all the questions that I have, but I just wanted to thank you so much for taking up the time. I know you're very busy right now with retirement, but thank you so much for taking up the time to speak with me today.

That concludes the fourth podcast in this series. Thank you so much to all who listened, and thank you to Janice for taking out the time to speak with me. We will see you next time on All Things Air.