Still Toxic After All These Years Air Quality

In the last several decades, policy makers have paid increasing attention to issues of environmental justice – the idea that the health burdens and risks of poor air quality and proximity to hazards are inequitably distributed by race and income. In 1994, for example, the Clinton administration adopted an executive order that made environmental justice a lens through which all federal environmental policy was to be assessed. The state of California took up the banner in 1999, with legislation that directed the state's environmental agencies to develop environmental justice policies and strategies. This shift in public sector attention has not been due to a sudden burst of goodwill on the part of regulators. Rather, public pressure by vibrant community-based groups coupled with mounting evidence compiled by academic researchers have both made the case clear and changed the political calculus. This winning combination of community voice and careful research has created examples of change across the country, and more groups have sought to develop partnerships that would generate both the scientific platform and the organizing energy to protect community health. This report emerges from one such partnership: the Bay Area Environmental Health Collaborative (BAEHC). With support from the San Francisco Foundation, some of the Bay Area's leading environmental justice and community health organizations came together with researchers from the Center for Justice, Tolerance and Community of UC Santa Cruz (CJTC) to help document the state of environmental disparity in the Bay Area. The results, as detailed in the report, are clear: environmental inequality is unfortunately alive and well, a fact that threatens the wellness of the most affected communities. The issue, of course, is what should be done to reduce disparities and improve environmental quality for everyone in the Bay Area. At the end of this report, we offer some possible policy directions but we realize that these are merely a start to a longer conversation between community, business and regulatory leaders. Our only insistence is that such a dialogue be initiated: as we witnessed in the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005, leaving some of us less protected ultimately poses environmental risks and costs for everyone. For supporting this project, including its community outreach component, we thank The California Endowment, the California Wellness Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation, and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. For providing careful data analysis, we thank Justin Scoggins, Bill Jesdale, and for inspiring us with their …