Members of minority groups bear an unfair burden of exposure to air pollution in the Bay Area because they make up nearly two-thirds of the population living within a mile of refineries, chemical plants and other sources of toxic air contaminants, according to a study released Tuesday.
A coalition of health and environmental groups called their report the first comprehensive attempt to document unequal access to clean air in the Bay Area.
“In the Bay Area, we have a problem with the degree of environmental inequality … even though we regard ourselves as a region that is very progressive,” said Manuel Pastor, a Latino studies professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz who helped conduct the study.
The report’s authors say government agencies need to change their policies to provide environmental justice when approving new industrial plants and regulating existing ones.
The report, “Still Toxic After All These Years: Environmental Justice in the San Francisco Bay Area,” was made public at a news conference in a Richmond industrial area where diesel trucks rumbled past.
Researchers for the Bay Area Environmental Health Collaborative combed through federal and census records on industrial pollution emissions searching for racial and economic trends in neighborhoods exposed to pollution that can increase risks of asthma, cancer and heart problems.
Latinos, African-Americans, and Asians or Pacific Islanders made up 62 percent of those living within a mile of plants or industries that reported toxic air emissions to the federal government, they found. Whites made up 33 percent of residents in those neighborhoods.
Demographics changed dramatically in neighborhoods farther from the plants.
Minorities made up 33 percent of the population living 2 1/2 miles or more from the plants, and whites made up 63 percent, the study found.
North Richmond, West Oakland and San Francisco’s Hunters Point were among the areas with high pollution exposure. To be sure, the relatively cheap price of housing near industrial plants attracted many people, researchers said.
The cumulative effect of pollution in a neighborhood needs to be considered when plans for new plants and limits on old ones are reviewed, the study recommended.
Officials at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District said they had not seen the study, but they agreed that the effects of air pollution have not been felt equally throughout the region.
The air district has begun a multi-year study to estimate which communities are at most risk from the cumulative effects of industrial and auto pollution.
The district plans to use the results to set priorities for awarding grants to reduce pollution.