Trent Wickman

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 second podcast episode, I am talking to Trent Wickman, an air resource specialist with the US Forest Service in the eastern region and his amazing experiences.

Let's just, like, jump right in. So you are an air resource air resource adviser. Correct?

Correct.

So what is that role kind of entail in, you know, what you do for the air program?

Sure. Well, that's one piece of what I do.

In about twenty fourteen, wildfire, incidents out west started having air air resource folks, on their teams, these teams that respond to wildfires, and to be able to assess smoke impacts from the wildfires, somebody that could specifically focus on that. So that was one of the first few folks that started to get involved in that back in twenty fourteen and now the program has expanded. I think I heard recently we got over sixty people that do it now.

It's just become a bigger and bigger piece of wildfire response dealing with the smoke. So, yeah, that's been, you know, something that again, my job is and, you know, air resource people in the forest service kind of varies across the country depending on what's going on. And being in the eastern part of the country, about half my job deals with fire and smoke, but wildfires prescribed fires, and the other half deals with looking at industrial air pollution. So that ARA part of my job focuses on the wildfire side of fires. But I also do quite a bit with prescribed fires, especially the spring is a big time for our prescribed fire season and forecasting smoke from prescribed fires.

Oh, nice. And, like, what do, like, what does, like, prescribed fires entail? Like, what's the kind of research that goes into, you know, figuring out, you know, which area to purposely, you know, set on fire essentially and, kind of, like, determining, like, how to kind of contain the fire so it doesn't impact other ecosystems.

Sure. Yeah. We do a lot of you know, prescribed fires are done for a lot of different reasons.

You know, many many, many of our ecosystems here are naturally fire dependent. Fire had always been a a part of of the landscape. And so, you know, the vegetation and and the ecosystem evolved with fire, and a lot of it needs fire. And, you know, when European settlement happened, a lot of the fire, basically was was put out.

Fires were put out, and it's it's left the ecosystem. And so piece of of why we do prescribed fires to bring in the desirable ecological effects that come with that. Another reason sometimes is that we just want to maintain the forest in a state where it's if a fire were to start, it wouldn't be so hot that we couldn't control it. That's a lot of times we call the vegetation fuels, and it's called fuels reduction, trying to reduce the amount of vegetation out there so that if a fire were to start, we can control it.

And so, you know, it's a couple different reasons that the fire managers do that, and that's that's the side of the the the house that I don't really get involved in. But once they decide where they're burning and what they wanna burn, then we work together and, assess the size of the burn and and what they're burning, and we can do predictions on where the smoke's gonna go, based on that.

Oh, that's really cool. And, like, what impact, like, you know, figuring out where the smoke is gonna go.

Are you looking to see if that impacts, like, communities, like, actual people, or are you looking to see, you know, if that, like, impact, like, other ecosystems and things like that? Like, how do you kind of determine, you know, where, like, the smoke goes and, why is that important sort of?

Yeah. Well, you know, we, focus on what we call sensitive receptors. So sensitive receptors could be things like an airport or a road, but it also can be things related to human health. So folks that are elderly or or young or with cardiovascular respiratory problems, those are the areas we focus on, particularly when we're looking at smoke. So that tends to be cities, obviously, and even specific locations like maybe day cares or or schools or hospitals.

So, you know, when we do a a model run and see where the smoke's gonna go, you know, depending on what the model says, it may be a situation where we don't like, where the smoke would go. And so we wait wait a day for a different, smoke direction or different a different impact. And so that's the value of being able to have a prescribed fire when you can kinda control things versus a wildfire that is just doing its own thing. And then you just figure out where the smoke's going and you don't really have much control.

Well, yeah. No. I never knew, like, that you guys could actually control where the the smoke was going to go in a prescribed fire. I always thought, like, when you see, like, here prescribed fire, it's just you know, you're controlling the fire itself, but that's really the extent of it. I didn't know you could really control where the smoke was gonna go because I just felt like that's based, like, on the wind and other factors like that.

It mostly is. I mean, there are some things they can do with how they light it that would affect how quickly it it builds, heat and maybe, you know, and also affect how high the smoke plume goes, which can affect where it goes. But, you know, it's not like we can point it where we want it to go necessarily. It's pretty much determined by the weather. But like you say, if if we don't like what we see, we can delay, and that's, you know, a a good option.

Oh, wow. That's that's actually really interesting.

So, like, my next question is, I know that you used to assess the impact of air emissions from industrial sources.

And I know that you used to issue air permits out for industrial sources. So I was just kind of wondering, like, what the process of process was of, you know, drafting these air permits and what you've kind of learned from that.

Yeah. I started out my career working for the state of Minnesota in their, air permitting branch.

So it's basically was the state version of EPA that I worked in. Every state has one of these and, you you know, industrial sources that, are doing an expansion or building a brand new facility have to get an air permit and look at the impacts.

And, you know, I'm an engineer by training, and, you know, that was a big piece of supplying engineering to, study the regulations that applied and trying to figure out what kind of pollution control equipment can be put on and, reduce the emissions and also looking at the impact of those emissions, both to human health and and also to the environment. So, you know, I think for me, it really helps me in the job that I have now because, on the Forest Service side where I'm now, a lot of times, well, pretty much all the time I'm working with those same people. And Mhmm.

You know, talking to them about impacts and and thinking about what kind of things can be done to reduce emissions.

But having been on the other side, you know, I know what it means to try to to to make those reductions, and I know what the other regulations are that apply that may be driving facilities to consider pollution control. So I've kinda seen it from all angles and, understand, you know, the drivers and and the pressures that that those, staff, people at the state are under. Mhmm.

And, like, because you've seen it, you know, from both sides of, you know, working the air program than in your past career, also, do you think that, you know, there is hope for, you know, less emissions in the future based on, you know, issue about air permits and things like that? Like, does it actually have, like, a big impact or something?

Oh, yeah. Yep. No. I I it it can you know, when you're in that job, it can be frustrating because it seems like a lot of the time, you're just pushing paper around on a desk and maybe nothing's really happening out there.

But over the years, I've seen some real, successes. And I think, you know, a couple I can think of right off the top of my head is if you look at, national emissions of sulfur dioxide, which is, you know, primarily, the driver of acid rain, it's also important for mercury, mobilization. And you look at just the trend in emissions. It's amazing how much the acid rain rule, which is the cap and trade rule that was put back in nineteen ninety into the Clean Air Act, has driven down emissions from power plants.

You know, it's on par with, I think, eighty percent reduction in sulfur, and it it's and it's it's so significant. I mean, we can see that. We track that same decrease both in precipitation, chemistry, and we can also track that decrease in late chemistry. We can follow sulfate right through the environment and see how much it's gone down.

So I think it's a real success story. It's too bad that more people aren't aware of, you know, the impact that regulations could have.

And then more local example, here, where near where I live, there's iron ore mines. And, through the regional haze process, there was a review of of, potential reductions in their emissions. And, they installed some new burners as a part of that process. And we're seeing some very significant the numbers aren't in yet, but some very significant reductions in emissions. And I think there were times early in my career when I'd be frustrated. I would have never thought we'd see such significant decreases.

So and, you know, a lot of these things are still there's still a lot of thought that there's gonna be continued decreases coming, with the continued transformation of our energy sector, you know, the renewables.

It's getting to the point where coal fired power plants are just, frankly, disappearing just for economic reasons.

It's gonna be a lot in the Midwest here in the next ten, twenty years. And and then you think about what we're doing with, vehicles going electric. I think that'll have a big impact. So I'm I'm really hopeful for the future.

Well, no. That's great because, you know, at first, I thought, you know, just, like, pushing papers around and people have, like, the stereotypical idea of, you know, regulation does not have that much of an impact and things like that, but it's actually very nice to hear that. There is hope for the future. There is hope, because, you know, a lot of the times we spoke on the news. It's very doom and gloom and pessimistic, but it's actually it's very refreshing to hear that. You know, the regulations that you guys do put in place have a substantial impact on, you know, reducing emissions.

Yep. Yep. No. It's good.

Yep.

I was also wondering, what is one thing I know this may be a loaded question, but, try your best.

What is one thing that you have learned from your time at the air burn that more peep more people should know?

I know. That's a that's a tough one. There's a lot of that.

It could be multiple things if you want. Yeah.

Well, I I I think it's important for people to realize, like, one thing that we just talked about, air quality regulations have impacts, and and we can clean the air. I mean, I think a bigger e issue even is that just for people to realize we do have an effect on the environment, in our everyday lives and things that we do. And, likewise, we can reduce that impact if we can act collectively as a society, and one way to do that is through regulations. Maybe other ways are, you know, voluntary efforts or education, but, just that, you know, we can do those things.

And that, you know, there's people in government that are trying to do good things and help, understand the problem and communicate the problem and and, understand it. You know? I think that's really a big thing for for me in in our program is that, you know, we're tasked to wear a lot of hats.

You know, in any single day, we might sort of act like a lawyer, act like a meteorologist, act like ecologist.

You know, we have to try to understand things very broadly, and it's a challenge that I really enjoy.

But, you know, trying to distill that information and understand the resource, understand what is it that really can cause a problem and at what levels, you know, from an air pollutant standpoint is is a challenge, and we do our best to try to bring that forward.

Well, it's all anybody can really do. Right?

No.

But I think it's actually really interesting that you say, like, you guys have to wear, like, different hats to kind of work in the air program because I thought, you know, people in it were pretty specialized in what they were doing.

So I don't know that, you know, you guys had to kinda be a little bit more versatile to understand, you know, the different concepts and other people that you guys might come across at the job.

Well and that's why, you know, we try to leverage each other's skills.

You know, we say that we're the smallest program in the forest service, roughly thirty people out of thirty thousand.

But, you know, that may sound like a negative, but on a positive side is is that we're small enough that we, you know, do we pretty much know everybody, and we know everybody's strengths. And so, you know, we rely on you know, if we have somebody that's an engineer, we rely on them. We have somebody that's ecologist or like an expert, we can rely on them to help the program as a whole. And so we we've learned over the years to really optimize and try to work across boundaries within our program to get as much done as we can.

No. No. For sure. Definitely.

And I I think it's very good that you guys have that collaborative aspect in the air program.

That I know a lot of other departments in the government, you know, don't have.

No. For sure. And then I was also wondering, so how has working for the air program allowed you to build upon the skills that, you know, you attained in your previous jobs or in college or things like that?

Well, I think it it for I've always been interested in multidisciplinary issues. When I went to college, I got a dual degree in biology and engineering, and I really enjoyed the intersection of the two disciplines.

You know, I think that's where there's a lot of potential for, you know, insight is when you're kinda get out of a silo and you stand between silos, and this program really defines that. You really have to be a little bit into into a lot of things and bringing those kind of things together. And so that's part I enjoy. You know, I've been in the air air quality world.

I've done a lot of stuff in water quality. Water quality is really important up to the part of the country where I'm at. Mhmm. So and that's really kind of where my heart always was, was in water quality and lakes, growing up on lakes.

And so I've been able to come full circle and look at, air pollution on effects on lakes. And so being able to do that and, working a lot with researchers again because there's no textbook for a lot of the questions that we're looking for answers to. So we have to go to research and have them have them help us answer those questions. And through that process, I've been able to, work a lot, not only with forest service research staff, but other university researchers.

And I had, attained my master's degree in school, and so I did a little bit of research. And I enjoy that. And so I've been able to kinda scratch a lot of itches that I personally have in this program just because of the variety of of things that I get to work on.

No. Definitely not.

I love water also, being on the water.

I used to do crew in high school.

So I have a very strong affinity to, you know, the water, and I think it's awesome that, you know, you're able to kind of further upon your skills by looking at the intersection, you know, how air emissions does impact lakes or bodies of water and things like that. So, like, what has been, like, one thing that you've learned from, you know, looking at that intersection that you think is particularly interesting?

Well, you know, I I think, to me, the interesting thing is is that the specific problems change over time, but it's still we're still talking about, you know, the intersection of of the atmosphere and and and water quality. I was just reviewing some some older papers recently, and I looked back over the scope of time. And the problems of of lakes, you know, started out with people concerned about productivity and algae blooms and and what we call eutrophication. And then, you know, it's moved into people who are concerned about acidification, and then people who are concerned about mercury contamination.

And and and more recently now, we're concerned about an issue we call browning, now where the lakes are. A lot of them are naturally brown just from the organics and the wetlands and stuff around here, but they're showing even a tendency to more browning and, you know, affects the climate change. And so, you know, it seems like just when you get a handle on one problem, the next problem is coming. And so it's just to have that fundamental grounding in in the sciences and know that when you get out there, whatever you're gonna end up working on may not be exactly what you start with.

That's true. That is a very good life lesson also to know that, you know, you do learn along a lot along the way, and it's actually crazy to see how, you know, your path can kind of change midway through based on, you know, what you've learned and things like that.

Yeah. Somebody told me you go to college not to learn things, but learn how to learn. And I think that was one of the truest things that somebody ever told me.

That is that is very, very true. As a freshman in college, I can definitely attest to that.

Hundred percent, I can attest to that.

But I think that's it for all of my questions. But do you have anything more that you would like to let me know about the work that you're doing, the specific research you're doing that you think would be particularly interesting?

Well, I think, you know, I might mention it since we were talking about lakes that, I'm really excited about a project we have coming up this summer. We're working with the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and EPA on a lake monitoring project to make an assessment of of, well over a hundred and fifty lakes in the three states. That's part of a survey that EPA does every five years where they're serving the condition of the nation's lakes, and they gen I mean, this is something that they would do across the country.

And so to do that, they take a random selection of lakes. They basically throw all the lakes in a bucket, and the computer pulls out, you know, randomly list of lakes for the states to sample.

And they do that, and it's a great survey. But the the issue that the problem I've had is that the spatial scale that it that it goes down to is just not small enough. Like, they'll report out, obviously, nationwide, but then they also report on what they call an ecoregion basis. And the smallest ecoregion size is basically all of Northern Minnesota, all of Northern Wisconsin, and Northern Michigan, and and even some of the kinda agricultural border regions.

And so when we get, like, for example, chemical or physical conditions of the lakes averaged over such a large area, it's not as useful as it could be as if we have it on a smaller basis. And so I'd approach the states and talked about, hey. Wouldn't it be cool if we could kinda break this down more and get reported on smaller, areas within that big, large area? But to do that, for statistics, you need to sample more lakes.

And, you know, it was just kind of an idea that I had, and then we started talking more and more and figured out a way we actually could pull this off by setting a combination of the resources the state had with, the people that we have in the forest service in offices all across that area being able to help with the sampling. And so it's a really cool partnership, and we're gonna be hitting the field this summer, sampling lakes like crazy. So that's that's gonna be what I'm gonna be doing is running around, helping with that effort.

And how do you guys, like, figure out which lakes to sample? Is there, like, a criteria?

Well, again, basically, EPA throws all the lakes that are qual qualify as a lake. So, you know, above a certain size and has certain amount of open water, they have the database that has that for all the lakes in the country, and they throw it in a bucket and randomly pull lakes out. So we just get a random list. And so the lakes can be anywhere. Like, it's pretty interesting just to see what comes out. For example, I know well, you know, in in Minnesota, they always get a lot of lakes in the boundary waters, and some of them could be you know, they're randomly picked, so they can be in absolute middle of nowhere where you wonder how you even gonna get to them.

And then what's really funny is the Minnesota contact, and I are pretty good friends, and he was joking to me that one of the lakes that is on the list is a little pond in a city park in the city of Duluth here where I live. And so we joke that the very last lake after this all this big effort this summer, we're gonna leave that one to the last. We're gonna go over there and have a an adult beverage before we, or after we're done to celebrate the end of the day at our little park that just walked people off from my house.

No. Well, that sounds amazing, and I'm glad I'm really excited that you guys are doing that that project, and you're really excited about it. That sounds an amazing amazing research that you guys are doing, you know, on the intersection of, you know, water and and air missions and things like that.

Yeah. It should be a good database for people to use and mine and answer questions for years to come.

No. That's great. And, you know, anything that helps other researchers kind of advance their knowledge or other people advance their knowledge is always an amazing thing, especially in, you know, this industry where, you know, data is always changing and everything's always evolving and it's always moving at a relatively fast pace.

Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

But I think that's all the questions I have. But, thank you so much for speaking with me today, Trent. Trent. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good, have a good day.

Thank you. You too. Bye bye. Bye.

That concludes the second podcast in this series.

Thank you so much to all who listened, and thank you to Trend for taking the time to speak with me. We will see you next time on All Things Air.