Still toxic after all these years

Still toxic after all these yearsBy Manuel Pastor, Rachel Morello-Frosch, James SaddThe Bay Area has often prided itself on leading the state on environmental issues, yet the region is also characterized by an unequal distribution of environmental burdens and opportunities.Twenty years ago, the United Church of Christ released a landmark study, “Toxic Wastes and Race, ” demonstrating that people of color in the United States were more likely to live near environmental hazards. In 2007, many of the Bay Area’ s communities of color remain concerned about the environmental exposures they confront every day.In Bayview- Hunters Point on the southeastern side of San Francisco, residents complained about a power plant for years before finally securing its shutdown in 2006. In West Oakland, community leaders have launched an effort to reduce emissions from idling trucks and other Port of Oakland activities. In Richmond, neighbors have worked to persuade the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to restrict flaring activities at the area’ s large refineries.Are these isolated instances or is there a systemic pattern of environmental inequality in the Bay? To address this, we amassed data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (E PA) on toxic-air releases from large industrial facilities and estimated health risks from air toxics emitted from both mobile and stationary sources. Our results, available in a forthcoming study, are disturbing.The ...