theCryptofishist wrote:Valley Fever is alive and well and a real on-going problem in the San Joaquin valley. It's something that we note about projects in those areas, where there's going to be a lot of ground disturbance during construction.^Rhino! wrote:There were 300 cases of something similar, 'Valley Fever" that occurred in Simi Valley after the Northridge earthquake, which stirred up fungal spores in the dust created from landslides.
Which is why I brought it up in the first place, my friend. There was a good article on it in a recent book published by the Geologic Society of America, Vol. XII in their Engineering Geology series. The article was entitled "An outbreak of coccidiodmycosis (valley fever) caused by landslides triggered by the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake". Landslides in canyon areas upwind of Simi Valley, Chivo, and Las Llajas Canyons aligned with the wind direction and then the elongation direction of the coccidiomycosis distribution in Simi Valley proper.
The point of the article was if you learn about the hazard, then you can anticipate the possibilities, perform even more rapid screening, and that leads to more rapid medical treatment that may reduce the number of serious or fatal cases.
Dust control measures are a must in the Simi Valley area, and BRC has its own dust control in the form of the water wagons. The other effective means of control is a dust mask that can handle 5 micron size particles, similar to what OSHA and MSHA recommend.
