The Oceano Dunes District of California State Parks is spreading hay across parts of the dunes to try to prevent blowing dust and sand.
“What we do is we put a cover of hay on the ground and then we seed native dune seed and, as well as sterile cereal grain for something to germinate quickly to hold the sand down,” explained Jon O’Brien, Oceano Dunes District Superintendent.
The hay helps to keep water on the sand as the plants grow, keeping the dunes secure in the process.
O’Brien said they have spent years trying to lower the amount of dust and potentially dangerous particles from the dunes blowing into nearby areas
Karl Tupper is the Executive Director at the San Luis Obispo Air Pollution Control District (APCD) and has been involved in dust mitigation at the dunes for over ten years.
“The more we can cover up that sand with vegetation, the less opportunity there is for dust to be generated when the wind blows," Tupper said.
O’Brien said this is the next stage of a process that started with years of temporary mitigation efforts.
“So most of the dust mitigation projects will start as a temporary project, like as fencing or as just straw or something along those lines," O'Brien said. "But what we do over time is we convert it to native dune vegetation and we found that to be extremely effective in improving downwind air quality.”
This process started around 2018, when the parks entered an agreement with the APCD. Tupper said the number of particles in the air since then has improved.
“We went from 97 exceedances of the state standard downwind of the Oceano Dunes in 2016 to less than 20 last year," Tupper said. "So just a dramatic decline. There's a whole bunch of other air quality metrics that we also look at and all of them show just a really steep decline in pollution.”
