Propane & Fire Safety
Sierra High Farms indoor cultivation necessitates we maintain three 5,000 gallon water tanks. These will be topped off daily from our well. The appropriate connections for fire trucks will be provided as a significant upgrade to year-round, fire-fighting water availability that will benefit area residents, including those in Nevada. As to the fire risk of Sierra High Farms itself, California has among the most strict fire codes in the nation, and our business is applying water to a dry desert, turning it green - this is the opposite of fire risk.
Interior fire code compliance includes fire suppression systems.
Propane use and storage has proven over the decades to be safer to both humans and the environment than gasoline/diesel. We are encouraged by federal environmental agencies and the Great Basin Air Quality District to fuel our generators with propane. We are also mandated by State cannabis laws to use gaseous fueled generators rather than diesel. While we don't have a choice, it IS the smart choice.
The Department of Energy released a report containing an analytical examination of fatal accidents involving propane gas transportation and storage. Overall, the purpose was to determine the risk of propane storage and transportation. The report concluded that the individual risk of propane storage and transportation is about one death per 37 million persons. That’s about the same odds as being on the ground and getting killed by an airplane crash. The odds are even less than the risk of death by lightning, tornadoes, or dam failures. For more context, the voluntary risk of being in a standard motor vehicle accident was 1 in 4,700. So, something that most of us do every day is considered far more likely and dangerous than an LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas) transportation or storage accident occurring.
Propane storage of this scale is not an exception in this valley, but rather, the norm. In the Antelope Valley there are already six large tanks similar to what we will install. There are hundreds of individual tanks in the valley and they are regularly filled by large tank propane trucks. The propane to fill those trucks is also stored locally before being distributed to the valley's homes and businesses. The most visible of these tanks is on 395, right across from Walker Coffee. We drive within 50 feet of it to visit the Walker Community and Senior Centers. Observe this tank for any reasonable length of time and you'll see it filled by semi-trucks and offloaded into large-tank local delivery trucks. All this activity is within a residential and business area and only a few hundred feet from children playing in Community Park. The other 5 tanks of this scale are all located without exception within 50 feet of homes, residents, and businesses. Our tank is more than 2,000 feet to the nearest house, and 4,000 to the nearest full time resident.
