IM California, Sacramento/E. coli in American River

Triathlon Forum
21

Forget water quality, how about air quality, as in AQI?

I have temporarily relocated to around Mather Field about 2 months ago. During this time there’re stretches when AQI > 100 (according to PuprleAir) for weeks on end. It gets worse at night time, but doesn’t really get all that much better during the day. From talking to locals, sounds like people are either blissfully unaware, or treat it as some treat COVID, i.e., “it’s a hoax.” AirNow readings are consistently lower than PurpleAir’s, and are mostly between 50-100, but while they claim to be more accurate, I’m not sure I believe that. Smell, coughing, itchy throat and eyes is what I base my final decision on whether to run outside or not, no matter what AirNow says. FWIW, the Temtop monitor I have has readings consistent with the PurpleAir’s. I’m reduced to doing everything inside, plugging the holes in garage door and purifying the air there for a while before I start in the morning.

I understand Sac has been steadily climbing on the most polluted U.S. cities list, with being in top 10 recently. LA is also high on that list, but you can still breath fresh air (AQI in Green/Yellow, not Orange+ like it is here) in areas around it. Having lived in CA for 10+ years now, I know chances of bad AQI are significantly higher in Summer/Fall than now, and during the fire season last Fall Sac was pretty much always worse than the Bay (which wasn’t great at all either unfortunately).

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is I don’t see how one can count on being able to safely exercise outside around here most of the year at all, let alone plan an Ironman during the fire season… We shall see I guess. This is the screenshot from PurpleAir as I type.

Relax. It isn’t Beijing. And you’ll have a distinct advantage if you haven’t had COVID.

And disagree about seasonal smog. Winter is worse, as chances for inversion layer conditions are higher.

But yeah, it is getting worse.
Climate change, EPA and Farming roll-backs, lack of transportation infrastructure.

Generally the wrong direction.

Relax.
.

22

Its a fair concern and certainly one we are aware of the perception of the water quality.

We have had independent testing done this year on what would be race week in 6 different locations in both rivers. Water quality came back well within our normal ranges and well within the governing body requirements for swim water quality. This testing was done by a 3rd party water quality testing group and collected in the middle of both rivers, and collected at the surface of the water. 3 locations in the American River, and 3 locations in the Sacramento.

A quick addition to consider. The testing of water done by local authorities is almost always at waters edge and collects water with the test sample extracted while the collector has their feet on the shore. In Sacramento this is the case. Also, the testing locations where they collect are intentionally the areas where water is known to stand the most. This is not a bad testing method, however it almost ensures that the collection sample will be the most absolute worst case scenario for water quality. They do this so they know worst case, it is by design that way. When we test bodies of water for swim courses, we observe those data points and consider them heavily, but we also always collect samples actually out in the body of water where swimming takes place.

In both rivers e.Coli results came back very low in comparison to many places triathlons are currently held. The data collected by the local authorities is not wrong, its just taken in the wrong place. There is a big difference between water that looks dirty, and water that is unhealthy. As it is said in this thread, we will not risk putting athletes in a body of water that is a known issue. We will be testing again next year leading into the event and you can rest assured we rarely do not have back up plans when possible. If you have raced a number of different IRONMAN races in North America you have swam in water that is right around the same quality as these test results showed us.

Again, its a fair concern, I just wanted to add more context that hopefully will clear up some details.

DC - Regional Director - IRONMAN

Thank you for the thoughtful and informative reply. I’m signed up, and this is reassuring.

23

Forget water quality, how about air quality, as in AQI?

I have temporarily relocated to around Mather Field about 2 months ago. During this time there’re stretches when AQI > 100 (according to PuprleAir) for weeks on end. It gets worse at night time, but doesn’t really get all that much better during the day. From talking to locals, sounds like people are either blissfully unaware, or treat it as some treat COVID, i.e., “it’s a hoax.” AirNow readings are consistently lower than PurpleAir’s, and are mostly between 50-100, but while they claim to be more accurate, I’m not sure I believe that. Smell, coughing, itchy throat and eyes is what I base my final decision on whether to run outside or not, no matter what AirNow says. FWIW, the Temtop monitor I have has readings consistent with the PurpleAir’s. I’m reduced to doing everything inside, plugging the holes in garage door and purifying the air there for a while before I start in the morning.

I understand Sac has been steadily climbing on the most polluted U.S. cities list, with being in top 10 recently. LA is also high on that list, but you can still breath fresh air (AQI in Green/Yellow, not Orange+ like it is here) in areas around it. Having lived in CA for 10+ years now, I know chances of bad AQI are significantly higher in Summer/Fall than now, and during the fire season last Fall Sac was pretty much always worse than the Bay (which wasn’t great at all either unfortunately).

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is I don’t see how one can count on being able to safely exercise outside around here most of the year at all, let alone plan an Ironman during the fire season… We shall see I guess. This is the screenshot from PurpleAir as I type.

Relax. It isn’t Beijing. And you’ll have a distinct advantage if you haven’t had COVID.

And disagree about seasonal smog. Winter is worse, as chances for inversion layer conditions are higher.

But yeah, it is getting worse.
Climate change, EPA and Farming roll-backs, lack of transportation infrastructure.

Generally the wrong direction.

Relax.
.

The best we can hope for is a delta breeze the night before to blow anything out but I think you are overblowing how bad the air is here. There are days when the quality is bad but it’s not as bad as you are thinking (or I live in a much better pocket, just north of Sac). SpareTheAir.com shows that Sac had over 330 days of good/moderate air and considering the bad fire season we had that’s not bad (IMHO).