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Student Spotlight: Francisco Dóñez
Student Spotlight Directory
ERG PhD candidate, Francisco Dóñez. Photos below: Big Bend National Park, August 2003. |
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"Brown Clouds and the Big Bend: Haze Pollution and a Changing World, 1993-2004"
Francisco Dóñez is a Ph.D. candidate in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. His research examines the discourses of air quality science, policy and activism in the 1990s, using a controversy over haze pollution in Big Bend National Park as a case study.
Big Bend is located in western Texas, adjacent to the Mexican border. Beginning in the 1970s, park staff and visitors began to discern noticeable changes in the air quality at the park; the area’s spectacular mountain and desert vistas were increasingly obscured by a layer of haze. By the early 1990s, Big Bend had earned the dubious distinction of having some of the worst visibility impairment episodes of any western national park. Haze at Big Bend became an internationally prominent issue beginning in 1993, during the height of negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). At that time, the U.S. and Texas governments, as well as some NGOs and media outlets, portrayed Big Bend haze as originating from a pair of coal-fired power plants in the Mexican state of Coahuila. The Mexican government--and the U.S. utility negotiating to purchase the plants--contested this accusation. A decade later, in 2004, the results of the Big Bend Regional Aerosol and Visibility Observational study (BRAVO) showed a more complex picture, with the Mexican power plants contributing significantly but pollution from east Texas and the eastern U.S. dominating the worst haze episodes.
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Francisco’s research suggests that scientific and policy models of visibility pollution used in the 1980s (which examined haze phenomena in terms of discrete pollution sources impacting specific “receptor” areas) closely resembled popular U.S. discourses of both globalization and illegal immigration, with uncontrolled flows of goods, money and people “invading” and disrupting the nation’s society, economy, and environment. These overlapping representations, along with Big Bend’s geographical setting on the U.S.-Mexico border and the furor over NAFTA, combined to elevate Big Bend haze from an obscure regional air quality issue to a full-blown environmental controversy. As the 1990s progressed, however, the simplified source-receptor model of visibility pollution gave way to a “regional haze” model, with haze pollution originating from numerous sources and causing visibility impacts over long distances. This development in the area of air quality science and policy again corresponded to shifts in environmental thinking (such as the emergence of “global” climate change as a major issue), and societal discourses on immigration and globalization. Francisco’s dissertation uses these findings to explore the sociopolitical underpinnings of environmental science and policy, and the problematic aspects of environmental regulation when deployed in the borderlands. This research is supported by grants from the UC Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS); the Center for Latino Policy Research; and the Science, Technology and Society Center. Francisco is also the recipient of the Switzer Environmental Fellowship, the University of California Dissertation-Year Fellowship, the Institute for the Study of Social Change Graduate Fellowship, and the Chancellor's Opportunity Predoctoral Fellowship. Quality control services graciously provided by Francisco's dissertation committee: Ann Keller, Chair, Richard Norgaard, and David Montejano.
In addition to his academic projects, Francisco works as a policy analyst at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 9 in San Francisco, California. A member of the Air Division staff, he collaborates with state agencies and regional air districts to develop and refine rules for various air pollution source categories. In a prior role, he supported Region 9’s involvement in air pollution issues related to energy production at the U.S.-Mexico border. Between 1997 and 2001, Francisco worked at EPA in Washington, DC, where he performed economic analysis of environmental regulations, and coordinated climate change policy and research collaborations with the Mexican government. He is highly motivated to improve racial and ethnic diversity in environmental and academic communities, and has led equal opportunity initiatives within EPA. Presently he is coordinating an ad hoc diversity committee within the Society for the Social Studies of Science. A native of Albuquerque, New Mexico, he received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1991, and an M.S. in Public Policy from Georgia Tech in 1996.
11/30/07
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